They sure do a lot of disparate things. Is the issue with only one or a few of the areas in which they are involved? Surely vimeo, the daily beast are uninvolved in this?

I think it's mainly ask.com

In my own worldview companies such as this as at this point autonomous entities made from money and owned by other money.

This is the stuff that skynet is made from.

This particular one seems noxious, but there are others which do make useful stuff, e.g. Kraft? Nestle? DuPont? P&G? come to mind.