Excite will remain a separate brand under Ask Jeeves Inc., with operations continuing out of Excite Europe's headquarters in Rome, Italy.

Ask Jeeves, Inc., a provider of information retrieval technologies, brands and Internet advertising services, today announced the acquisition of Excite Italia B.V., the operator of Excite Europe, a network of pan-European portal properties, from Tiscali, S.p.A, extending its search technology to Excite Europe users.

Ask Jeeves acquired the U.S.-operated Excite.com portal in March 2004. The acquisition of Excite Europe will extend Ask Jeeves' ownership of the Excite brand beyond the United States, giving the company ownership of Excite's Internet domains throughout Europe. It will also have control of existing portal offerings in European markets including Spain, Italy, France, UK and the Netherlands. Excite will remain a separate brand under Ask Jeeves Inc., with operations continuing out of Excite Europe's headquarters in Rome, Italy.

"This deal is a next step in Ask Jeeves' European expansion strategy. Access to Excite's pan-European operational infrastructure and market knowledge will accelerate our European growth initiative and provide an instant revenue stream from additional users and advertisers," said Steve Berkowitz, CEO of Ask Jeeves.