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Ask.com is planning to launch an adsense competitor. The new contextual search ad service will go live in the week of May 21st.

The product will initially launch within IAC’s own network of sites including Match.com, Ticketmaster.com, Evite.com and Citysearch.com and will later expand to include trusted third party publishers. As for people like us, we most probably will have to wait till next quarter to get our hands dirty with this product. All the current sponsored listing advertisers will automatically be opted into the new contextual network, but could opt out if they want.

Publishers will have two unique features that both Yahoo and Google does not provide at the moment i.e they could set “page yield threshold” and “relevancy threshold”. These two thresholds will allow publishers to determine whether they want higher paying ads or more relevant ads. Another feature that Ask will be providing would be transparency, something that is missing from Google’s AdSense offering ever since its launch. Ask.com publishers will be able to know their revenue share upfront. This might make a short term difference, but at the end of the day the party offering the higher payments will win. Although matching Google’s extensive repository of advertisers will be tough, a little competition is always good for consumers.

See the press release embedded below.