According to Reuters, CEO Barry Diller said he has been approached by various parties about purchasing Ask.com, but he is less interested in divesting the search engine as a stand-alone business than consolidating it with another search company.

 

Questions about acquiring Ask.com were prompted by comments Diller made during a call with investors in October 2009, when most believed he effectively hung a “for sale” sign on the search engine.

 

“The people who called us were on exploration missions, on a stand-alone buy as an asset. That is different than having conversations with other people in the vineyard, in the area of search,” he said at the Reuters Global Media Summit in New York on Wednesday.

 

The veteran media dealmaker said that while Ask.com is not core to IAC’s future, he had not meant to suggest in October that the company was keen for an immediate divestiture.

 

IAC’s Ask.com is the fourth-ranked search engine behind Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, with a humble 4 percent share of the U.S. search market, according to comScore.

 

Ask.com uses Google’s search advertising platform as its main source of revenue.

 

Diller also said he has had ongoing conversations with AOL about partnering in areas including search and local online services, but characterized the discussions as “idle chat.” He said IAC was not interested in acquiring AOL

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