Well, I was to quick to jump to conclusions, but apparently, Time Warner/AOL did not buy a piece of Net2Phone. A terse email from Time Warner Investor Relations says it was not a new purchase.

It is not a new purchase. We suggest that you refer back to July 1999. From our website you can access the press release (at) www.timewarner.com (or) From www.sec.gov, you can accesss the filings made by both AOL (Dec. 1999) and Net2Phone (7/99).

I will wait till Monday to get a full low down from Time Warner Investor Relations to get the whole thing straightened out. Meanwhile, a big whoops from me. You can blame this one too much egg nog, and bourbon, not necessarily in that order. Apologies to the readers! Apparently, EWeek fell for this one as well. They have also updated the story.

The SEC document, dated December 7 and filed on December 22, is simply a notice that Time Warner is reducing its stake to below 5 percent, the source explained. When Net2Phone was spun off from IDT Corp. and went public in July 1999, AOL purchased a 6.5 percent stake in the company. The latest filing in effect amounts to a stake reduction, the source said.