Introduces the beta versions of Ask.com France, Ask.com Italia and Ask.com Nederland.

Ask.com, today introduced the beta versions of Ask.com France, Ask.com Italia and Ask.com Nederland, representing the company's most recent expansions in Western Europe.

The beta search sites are available in each respective country at ask.com and can also be accessed directly from any country at fr.ask.com, it.ask.com, nl.ask.com.

Ask France, Italia and Nederland include innovative features such as the Ask.com Toolbox, which provides customizable homepage shortcuts to tools including Image Search and MyStuff, a personalized search service for saving, sharing and organizing search results. The beta sites will also feature Binoculars- a preview tool that allows searchers to preview websites by mousing over the binoculars icon within their search results; Family Filter, a feature protecting users from viewing unwanted adult content and Page Translation, translating English-language pages into French.

"The unique search experience at Ask.com has resulted in the largest U.S. percentage growth among the major search engines for 2005, and we look forward to bringing that experience to more European users," said Steve Berkowitz, CEO, Ask.com. "With the help of Ask.com, Internet users in France, Italy and the Netherlands will now be able to get what they are looking for faster."

"The European search market is growing rapidly and, with differentiated search technology and a single-minded focus on meeting users' search needs, Ask.com is uniquely positioned to take advantage of that growth," said Adrian Cox, Executive Vice President & General Manager, Ask.com Europe. "We expect that the user adoption of our newly-launched interface, search tools and technologies, coupled with the Ask.com features that our users have come to love, will help Ask.com become a driving force in search across Europe."