ICQ, the historic instant messenger platform created in the 1990s, will stop working next month.
An announcement on ICQ.com states that on June 26th ICQ will no longer function. The message prompts current ICQ users to use VK Messenger and VK Workspace, both Russian platforms.
Originally developed by Israeli company Mirabilis in 1996, the IM client was bought by AOL in 1998 for $407 million dollars and then by Mail.Ru Group (VK) in 2010.
Registered in 1998, the domain ICQ.com wasn’t used initially in relation to the chat app but now it seems that it might be available for sale.
In 1997, before its drop the subsequent year, ICQ.com was linked to the Canadian organization Instrumentation Et Controle Quebec.