America Online to buy company that makes ICQ?

According to reports, America Online (AOL) is buying Mirabilis (Latin for"marvelous"), the company that makes ICQ, a popular Internet communicationstool. ICQ, which is available for free on the Internet, allows its users tocontact each other via the Net and set up instantaneous chat sessions. Bestof all, ICQ is fast: you know when the people in your "buddy" list are online and you can set it up to present messages when you're away. According to Mirabilis, there are over 400,000 people simultaneously usingICQ at any given time and there are over 11 million registered users. TheMirabilis home page is consistently in the top-ten most visited sites onthe Internet.

Spokespeople for both AOL and Mirabilis refused to comment on the rumors