This Google acquisition story was nothing more than a carefully elaborated hoax. To the attentive eye the occasional typo mistakes and the small size of the actual text were a good reason to doubt the press release was real. But these signs were not enough for many news organizations that ended up re-posting the hoax as news on their sites. The Associated Press was one of these organizations. The AP later issued a retraction.
Experts say the hoax was so successful because it used Google’s identity. “Identity theft” is often used by scammers and social engineers. The most likely reason why someone created this fraudulent press release was to increase the ICOA’s share price. This is highly illegal. If this was its purpose the person behind the fake press release did not achieve his goal because the share price barely shifted by a penny. ICOAcorp also reported what happened to the US Exchange Commission.
