MarketingVOX reports Ask.com is planning to update its paid search platform in October, adding more control over daily search budgets and new reporting tools among other new features.

Ask.com has provided some updates to its Smart Answer service, making some additions to deliver information about hurricanes and tropical storms to users of the search engine.

Some call them smileys, others refer to them as emoticons, and a lot of people put them in emails, SMS, and instant messages every day; Ask.com can help people figure out what some of the odder ones mean.

Ex-PayPal chief technology officer Chuck Geiger has taken on the executive vice-president of technology and engineering role for Ask.com.

CNET has details of a new alliance by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Ask.com, LookSmart and others to form the Click Measurement Working Group.

Ask.com now displays RSS Smart Answers for web searches on the names of popular blogs or news sources; the three latest posts from a site’s RSS feed will appear atop the Ask search results.

In an apparent attempt to block access to child pornography, Ask.com has begun restricting results for certain search queries that may lead to offensive and criminal content.

The Smart Answer Geeks at Ask.com know there is more to the weather than just the temperature and the amount of cloud cover floating around on a given day.

Microsoft may not get around to unseating Google from the search engine perch, as Ask.com may complete its turnaround and start seeing its market share rise thanks to a host of features available from IAC’s Search and Media division.

Tuoc Luong, executive VP and Chief Technology Officer at IAC Search and Media, has followed former CEO Steve Berkowitz out of the company in favor of a new employer.

Ask.com senior VP and general manager Jim Lanzone has been tapped to take over the big office at the search engine now that erstwhile CEO Steve Berkowitz has bailed out of the company in favor of David Cole’s old MSN position at Microsoft.

Steve Berkowitz, CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp’s Ask.com search engine, will leave the company to take over MSN.

Searchers in France, Italy, and the Netherlands can choose to try beta versions of the Ask.com search engine in those countries.