ICQ, an instant messaging service that launched in 1996 and was very popular at one time in the US, is officially shutting down operations on June 24, nearly 28 years after it launched.
ICQ, an instant messaging service that was at one time very popular in the US and other parts of the world in the early days of the consumer PC internet, is officially closing up shop. The official ICQ site now has a message that says the service « will stop working on June 26 ».
ICQ was first launched in November 1996 by Israel-based Mirabilis. In a 2003 interview with the Israel21c website, one of the co-founders of the company, Yair Goldfinger, stated that he and two friends developed the idea for ICQ (which is supposed to stand for « I Seek You) in about two months, The father of Goldfinger decided to invest a few hundred thousand dollars to the group.
