While discussing InterActiveCorp's quarterly earnings, which revealed revenues in the media and advertising business have declined 11 per cent, Diller said Ask.com faced a challenging environment in the search business.
"We've been asked a lot whether we're open to consolidating transactions in the area of search. The answer is yes," Diller said. "And, it is unlikely that we would be the consolidator."
According to Hitwise, Ask accounts for just 2 per cent of UK search traffic, a distant fourth to Google with 82 per cent, Microsoft with 3.1 per cent and Yahoo! with 2.25 per cent.
Earlier this year, Ask sought to revive interest in its flagging brand by resurrecting iconic butler Jeeves, and reverting to its original name askjeeves.com, which was dropped two years ago, in favour of a cleaner interface.
Ask Jeeves was launched in 1997 with the Jeeves figure able to answer specific questions typed in to the search engine.
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