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ICQ

For other uses, see ICQ (disambiguation).
ICQ
Original author(s)Mirabilis
Developer(s)
Initial releaseNovember 15, 1996 (1996-11-15)
Stable release
10.0.46867 (May 27, 2022)
Repository
Written in
Platform
Available in
  • Russian
  • English
  • Portuguese
  • Ukrainian
  • German
  • Czech
  • French
  • Chinese
  • Turkish
  • Spanish
  • Arabic
  • Vietnamese
TypeInstant messaging
LicenseProprietary
Websiteicq.com

ICQ New is a cross-platform instant messaging (IM) and VoIP client. The name ICQ derives from the English phrase "I Seek You".[1] 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.[2]

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 customers telling their friends about it, who then informed their friends, and so on.[3] 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,[4] and its influence is seen in modern social media applications. ICQ became the first widely adopted IM platform.[5]

At its peak around 2001, ICQ had more than 100 million accounts registered.[1] At the time of the Mail.Ru acquisition in 2010, there were around 42 million daily users.[6] 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.[7] In 2022, ICQ had about 11 million monthly users.[8]

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.[9] 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.[10]

  1. ^ a b ICQ Surpasses 100 Million Registered Users, Time Warner Press Release - May 09, 2001 (accessed 2015-05-12).
  2. ^ "News". www.businesswire.com (Press release).
  3. ^ "What Is ICQ? Myths, Scams & More (with pictures)". Easy Tech Junkie. 2023-06-19. Retrieved 2023-07-24.
  4. ^ "What Ever Happened to ICQ?". TechSpot. 23 February 2022.
  5. ^ "From AIM to Slack: Tracing the History of Chat Apps". Medium. June 9, 2017.
  6. ^ Khrennikov, Ilya (29 July 2014), "ICQ Messenger Is Growing for the First Time in Years", Bloomberg Business
  7. ^ Novinar, Novinar (April 7, 2020). "Mail.Ru Group Brings Back ICQ Messenger With Focus on Group Talks". Russia Business Today.
  8. ^ "What Ever Happened to ICQ?". TechSpot. 23 February 2022.
  9. ^ Purnell, Newley; Wang, Joyu (24 January 2021). "Dropping WhatsApp? Nostalgia Drives Users to ICQ". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  10. ^ "No Facebook, links com pornografia infantil circulam livremente" [On Facebook, links containing child pornography are shared freely]. Núcleo Jornalismo (in Brazilian Portuguese). 2023-06-22. Retrieved 2023-06-23.

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