European users of free email offering Lycos Mail and Tripod, a web-hosting package, will no longer be able to access the services in four weeks' time.
Lycos has decided to pull the plug on both after a strategic review concluded that the company should discontinue its portal and hosting activities and try to sell what it could of its assets.
The company first expressed its intention to shut down the services in November last year and Lycos Tripod customers received an email this weekend telling them that the service would close on 15 February.
"We regret having to take this step and we want to thank you for your confidence in the past," an email to customers reads.
"Currently, we are still working on finding a solution to provide you the service through another provider. If we should succeed in doing so, we will inform you within the next four weeks," the message continued.
Lycos has sent instructions to all customers advising them how to save their website and upload their data to another service.
Lycos Inc, a separate concern, was keen to emphasise that the shutdown only affected users in Europe.
"The closing of these two products by Lycos Europe does not impact Lycos users in the US. Lycos Inc and Lycos Europe are two completely separate entities and business units," the company said in a statement. Lycos isn't the first tech company to feel the effect of the recent economic downturn. Google last week announced that it was cutting 100 jobs and AOL has closed down several services such as Xdrive.
http://mail.lycos.co.uk www.tripod.lycos.co.uk 
