Lycos, a once-popular internet portal from the 1990s, has been brought back to life after the French media publisher ADN Contents acquired its domain name, lycos.fr, at an auction on WebExpire on September 21, 2026. The purchase price was 35,300 euros. ADN Contents, founded by Benjamin Romei, plans to re-launch Lycos as a modern gateway to the French internet, separate from the company that originally ran the service. Lycos was created in 1994 and was among the first search engines to use prefix matching and word proximity, which helped it stand out at the time. In France, the brand became well-known for its distinctive logo and mascot: a black retriever dog, with the advertising slogan "Go get it!" aimed at the dog. During the late 1990s, Lycos was one of the most visited internet addresses, before Google rose to dominance. Lycos Europe shut down in February 2009, and the French version was removed at the same time. After the acquisition, the lycos.fr website began showing a page introducing the future portal and inviting users to reserve their usernames. Romei noted that the response was immediate, with thousands of registrations even before any official announcement. He said the enthusiasm confirmed the lasting appeal of the Lycos brand. The new Lycos plans to offer three main services: a news portal that collects articles from various sources, Lycos ID, which allows users to create personal pages at lycos.fr/votrenom, and a search engine built on its own index, available at search.lycos.fr. The search engine will look through news articles, general content, and Lycos ID profiles. Funding will come from advertising and paid features on personal pages. Romei emphasized that the project is not meant to be a museum, but rather a modern platform aimed at attracting a wide audience, not just those who used the original Lycos in the past.