The Russians want to restart ICQ-messenger – the media
A Russian company that owns the once-popular ICQ instant messaging system plans to restart it.
This was reported by the Russian edition “Vedomosti“.
According to a source close to VK Group, the ICQ restart project was discussed at the top management level before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But after the start of the war, it began to be discussed with the country’s authorities, said an unnamed federal official.
As of the beginning of March, it was not only about restarting ICQ, but also about launching VK Group’s corporate messenger VK. These two areas were discussed in parallel, the interlocutor said. VK Group allegedly expects to deploy both of these projects by the summer of 2022.
VK Group (until 2021 – Mail.ru Group) in addition to ICQ also owns social networks ‘VKontakte’, ‘Classmates’, mail service and search engine Mail.ru and many other services. Also, these services work very closely with the Russian authorities, which, of course, greatly affects the quality and transparency of these applications and is controlled by the Russian FSB.
