Google's Mysterious $400 Million IOCA Acquisition Never Happened

Google

was thought to have purchased ICOA

. In fact, there was a PRWeb press release claiming that the company had already completed the acquisition.

That press release turned out to be a hoax. ICOA Chief Executive George Strouthopoulos told

that the news is false and that ICOA has "never had any discussions with any potential acquirers." "Someone, I guess a stock promoter with a dubious interest, is disseminating wrong, false and misleading info in the PR circles," he said. "ICOA will report this to the proper authorities." The fake press release, which was once located at

, has now been deleted by PRWeb. The Associated Press, which published a story about the supposed acquisition earlier this morning,

its story after ICOA denied the story. Interestingly, Google declined the Associated Press' request to comment on the matter. PRWeb has also been

about the situation. (This is not the first time that a PR distribution service has been used to promote false information.) On its websites, Google and ICOA make no mention of the false acquisition. While Google frequently updates its various blog and news release pages with a wide variety of information, IOCA has not updated its

page since 2006. The company has not updated its

page since 2010. If Strouthopoulos's assumptions are correct, a stock promoter hoped that the press release would boost the share price of ICOA.