ask.com

Ask.com is laying off roughly 130 engineers and giving up on its own all-purpose search technology. It plans to go back to its roots of answering simple questions instead of indexing everything on the Web. Its exit leaves only two general search providers: Google and Microsoft.

On a conference call to discuss IAC's second-quarter earnings, Barry Diller, the web company's chairman, at times sounded like he was taking personal responsibility for the failure to turn Ask.com into a viable alternative to Google.

Barry Diller's sprawling Internet company operates more than 50 diversified businesses in 30 countries, including high-traffic sites Ask.com, Match.com, CitySearch and Dictionary.com. It has gobs of cash and little debt. Yet its stock is stuck.

Internet giant Google grew its U.S. market share by a full percentage point to 71.6 percent in November, according to Web traffic tracker Hitwise. See how Google's gain impacted Bing and Yahoo.

Microsoft's Bing may be the fastest-growing player in the search market, but IAC chairman Barry Diller doesn't seem to think much of its prospects. Diller told attendees of the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference on Wednesday that he believes trying to beat Google at its own game, as Bing is...