Oakland, Calif. - Ask.com, the search engine unit of IAC (NASD: IACI), announced on Thursday that it will acquire Lexico Publishing Group, the owner of reference sites Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com and Reference.com, for an undisclosed sum.

Reston, Va. - comScore, a provider of Internet audience measurement services, said that Google widened its lead against competing search engines in May, capturing 50.7% of the market.

New York, N.Y. - IAC/InterActive Corp., the New York-based conglomerate of Internet media and e-commerce businesses, is opening a venture capital investment arm in Silicon Valley, according to a report in the San Jose Mercury News.

New York - Microsoft's share of the U.S. search market fell in April, to 9% from 10.1% a month earlier, while Google advanced further ahead of the rest of the pack, growing its share from 53.7% in March to 55.2% last month, according to data from Nielsen/NetRatings.