In the past year, Internet companies have been rapidly consolidating, with staggering amounts of money changing hands in the form of stock.

Every week, records are set as share prices reach new highs.

"It's all funny money anyway," said Mr David Cash, analyst with Jupiter Communications in New York. "So nobody gets hurt.

Except perhaps the investor who buys at the wrong time."

Last week Web portal Yahoo! bought the free home pages provider GeoCities for $3.58 billion (€3.16 billion).

Two weeks ago, high-speed Internet access company, AT Home, said it would acquire the Web portal Excite for $6.7 billion.

In November, America Online moved to acquire Netscape Communications for $4.2 billion.

Earlier in the year, Web portal Lycos went on the rampage gobbling up Wired Digital in October, Web information provider WhoWhere in August and home page builder Tripod in February.

The large media companies have also been getting in on the action with NBC buying a slice of Snap and Disney investing in Infoseek. Now CBS and Time Warner are rumoured to be looking at potential targets.

Other companies said to be ripe for the picking include home page builder and chat sites Xoom, and TheGlobe, as well as auction and retail sties eBay, uBid, Onsale and CDnow.