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Concept
ICQ
Summary
ICQ New is a cross-platform instant messaging (IM) and VoIP client. The name ICQ derives from the English phrase "I Seek You". Originally developed by the Israeli company Mirabilis in 1996, the client was bought by AOL in 1998, and then by Mail.Ru Group (now VK) in 2010.
The ICQ client application and service were initially released in November 1996, freely available to download. The business did not have traditional marketing and relied mostly on word-of-mouth advertising instead, with consumers telling their friends about it, who then informed their friends, and so on. ICQ was among the first stand-alone instant messenger (IM) applications—while real-time chat was not in itself new (Internet Relay Chat (IRC) being the most common platform at the time), the concept of a fully centralized service with individual user accounts focused on one-on-one conversations set the blueprint for later instant messaging services like AIM, and its influence is seen in modern social media applications. ICQ became the first widely adopted IM platform.
At its peak around 2001, ICQ had more than 100 million accounts registered. At the time of the Mail.Ru acquisition in 2010, there were around 42 million daily users. In 2020, the Mail.Ru Group, which owns ICQ, decided to launch new software, "ICQ New", based on its messenger. The updated messenger was presented to the general public on April 6, 2020. In 2022, ICQ had about 11 million monthly users.
During the second week of January 2021, ICQ saw a renewed increase in popularity in Hong Kong, spurred on by the controversy over WhatsApp's privacy policy update. The number of downloads for the application increased 35-fold in the region. In 2023, an investigation by Brazilian news outlet Núcleo Jornalismo found that ICQ was used to freely share child pornography due to lax moderation policies.
Private chats are a conversation between two users. When logging into an account, the chat can be accessed from any device thanks to cloud synchronization.
Official source
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