Lycos Europe appears to have found a last-minute buyer for its part of the Tripod web hosting service. Six million users of the platform were due to have their websites switched off on Sunday, February 15, after Lycos Europe opted to liquidate itself following its failure to find a buyer…

SEE ALSO: Lycos Europe Killing Tripod, Customers Warned To Back Up

But users just received an email: “On the 16.02.2009 a new provider will take over Tripod and continue its service. We are happy to inform you that the Tripod service will continue to run, and therefore our last communication is now no longer the truth.”

This goes for Lycos UK, Germany, the Multimania name under which Tripod operated in France and, likely, more countries. The identity and nature of the saviour are unclear, but a change to users’ domain names (from members.lycos.co.uk to members.multimania.co.uk) may point to French involvement, given the Multimania connection.

Lycos Europe had already opted not to liquidate but to try and sell Danish portal. It also sold its United Internet AG domain business to 1&1 for €34 million. No such word on Lycos Mail or Lycos Europe’s US-facing portal Jubii, which were both also due to shut. Full email to users follows…