After operating for more than 27 years, ICQ will be terminated starting next June 26. ICQ's official website made this announcement out of the blue with users advised to move to VK Messenger or VK Workspace service after that date.
ICQ started service on November 15, 1996 with it getting its name from "I Seek You". In the early days of the internet, it was difficult to chat with friends and ICQ was one of the earliest along with services such as mIRC launched in 1995.
It was developed by Yair Goldfinger, Sefi Vigiser, Amnon Amir, Arik Vardi, and Yossi Vardi from Israel as a way to facilitate private conversations between users. Each user has a shared five-digit personal identification number to initiate a two-way conversation.
Because of its popularity in the late 1990s, ICQ was acquired by AOL in 1998. At the peak of its popularity, ICQ had 100 million registered users. In 2010 it was taken over by Mail.Ru Group which later changed its name to VK Group.