The search engine Terra Networks acquired in 2000 was Lycos.
Terra Networks, a Telefónica internet company, acquired Lycos in a stock transaction valued at about $12.5 billion. The deal was announced in 2000, during the peak of the dot-com boom, when internet portals were valued partly on their rapidly growing audiences and international reach.
Lycos had begun as a search engine and had expanded into a broader web portal, offering services such as email, news, entertainment, and other online features. By the time of the acquisition, it was one of the most prominent internet properties in the United States and had a significant presence in Europe and Asia.
After the transaction, the combined business became known as Terra Lycos. The deal is often remembered as a spectacular example of dot-com-era valuations: Terra later sold Lycos in 2004 to South Korea’s Daum Communications for roughly $95.4 million in cash. That later sale does not change the answer to the 2000 acquisition question.