back to article Time Warner swallows Google's AOL stake

Time Warner has bought back the five per cent stake in AOL which Google bought for $1bn back in 2003 - only having to cough up $283m for the stake. Google wrote the investment down by $726m in February. The buyback is a necessary step in Time Warner's long-stated ambition to spin AOL off as an independent company. It hired …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ah yes...

    I remember when AOL were bought over... they went from being a fairly decent ISP to a majorly crap ISP..

    Remember ye ol' free multiplayer games, like world of warcraft 2 and Starship troopers online.. and not forgetting Silent Death Online before EA took the games over.

  2. Tony S
    FAIL

    b****y AOL

    AOL bought out Compuserve a number of years ago. As per El Reg report of a few weeks ago, (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/07/compuserve_shut_down_by_aol/) they decided to close the service down.

    However, they are still charging me for the privilege of using their service! I tried to contact their customer support - all closed down. Instead I got a generic email telling me to contact AOL on the telephone line and helpfully provided the number. When I called the number provided, they tell me it's nothing to do with them and to contact Compuserve directly. (Hello - they are closed down and your company closed them)

    Tried the email link and so far all I get are emails advising me how to change the password on my AOL mail service (which I don't have!!!)

    Tried the credit card company (RBS) who say I need to go back to the supplier of the service. So I have now told them to shove their credit card as I simply cannot be bothered to fuss with it anymore. (that's the polite version)

    Customer service - heard of it, but don't want anything to do with it.

  3. Disco-Legend-Zeke

    AOL started as an "Online service"...

    They were very late to the Internet (tm) party.

    They had a great walled garden, but the hourly connection fees chased customers out into the jungle.

  4. Christopher Rogers
    Stop

    another name that shoud vanish

    AOL should have been put to death a long time ago.

  5. steward
    Alert

    AOL started out before there were CD-ROMS

    AOL was a name change from Quantum Computer Services, which provided an online service ("Q-Link") via local dialup numbers to Commodore 64 users. Its ISP days came long after the company started.

  6. MadonnaC
    Pint

    AOL used to have some use

    AOL started out as an internet service provider distributing millions of promotional CDs^H^H^HFloppies.

    This was the only useful thing - running low on floppies? <RING> "send me some of your sign up floppies, I want to give them to some friends"

  7. Henry 3
    Thumb Up

    And will quickly

    ....vomit it out again.

  8. rick buck
    Welcome

    $160 Billion > $1 Billion > $283 Million + STUPIDITY ON SOMEONES PART, and they still have hope?

    Aol is a dead fish in my neighborhood,

    MS's Bing is circling the bowl,

    and taking Yahoo with it.

    LONG LIVE GOOGLE.

  9. DarkHorseDre

    Holy mackerel!

    $160BN? down to $282M? Those proportions astound me!

    I remember the dot-com crash... overvalued companies gettin a reality check, resulting in my not being able to buy my employers options in 6 years!!

    What I will never understand is, despite the fact that everyone was doing it, why would anyone buy a part of a company that is allegedly worth $160BN? Didnt they want proof???

    I mean, AOL sucked for as long as I can remember lol!

    *anyone remember AOL on win 95 and the browser it used? damn!

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