Google and ICOA: The big deal that wasn't
Earlier today, word that Mountain View megalith Google would snap up ICOA, a Wi-Fi provider based in Warwick, R.I. The move was seen as an effort by Google to increase its network capability.
"As the amount of data traffic increases," one analyst in Computerworld, "so has also the importance of Wi-Fi as a way to offload cellular networks."
The only problem: Google isn't actually interested in ICOA, and may not have entered talks with the company at all. In a feistily-worded message to TechCrunch this afternoon, ICOA聽CEO George Strouthopoulos called the rumors "NOT TRUE" (the caps are his).听
"Never had any discussions with any potential acquirers! This is absolutely false!" Strouthopoulos wrote. "Someone, I guess a stock promoter with a dubious interest, is disseminating wrong, false and misleading info in the PR circles."
Google has separately the rumors in an interview with Mashable.听
So what happened, exactly? Well, the whole mess can be traced to press release, which was on PRWeb.com, and which states that in acquiring ICOA, Google is looking to "further diversify it's already impressive portfolio of companies."聽
PRWeb doesn't exactly have a lot of聽barriers聽to entry, or a particularly rigorous approval and verification process: Users simply sign up for a free account and post away. Reps for the site haven't yet explained how the erroneous ICOA/Google press release got up there, but it's not unreasonable to assume, as ICOA's聽Strouthopoulos argued, that the whole thing was an elaborate attempt to drive up stock prices.听
Updates when we have them.听
For聽more tech news, follow us on聽.
