According to a press release, Ask.com is acquiring Lexico Publishing Group LLC, the Long Beach-based owner of Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, and Reference.com. There is no corresponding press release at the Lexico site. In fact, its most recent press release is dated July 17, 2007 and announces Lexico’s intent to be acquired by Answers.com for $100 million. That never materialized. The Ask press release doesn’t give away the price it paid for Lexico, just says it’s "an all cash transaction."  Ask also says that the acquisition will grow its user base to "more than 145 million unduplicated monthly unique users." That’s a lot of people! Particularly attractive, apparently, is Lexico’s Word of the Day Mailing List, which has over a million subscribers. The fact that all its products are free doubtless encourages all that traffic.