Jump to content

Tucows: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous edit
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
Edited repetitive titles, mainly under business category
Citation bot (talk | contribs)
Bots
5,409,484 edits
Added date. | Use this bot. Report bugs. | Suggested by Abductive | Category:Articles with unsourced statements from March 2008 | #UCB_Category 722/859
 
(360 intermediate revisions by more than 100 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
{{short description|Internet services and telecommunications company based in Toronto}}
{{Infobox Company
{{Infobox website
| company_name = Tucows Inc.
| company_logo = [[File:Tucows logo.jpg]]
| name = Tucows Inc.
| logo = Tucows logo.svg
| company_type = [[Public company|Public]]<br />{{amex|TCX}}, {{tsx|TC}}
| foundation = [[Flint, Michigan]] (1993)
| company_type = [[Public company|Public]]
| traded_as = {{unbulleted list|{{NASDAQ|TCX}}|{{tsx|TC}}|[[Russell 2000 Index|Russell 2000 Component]]}}
| location = [[Toronto, Ontario]] (with offices in [[Starkville, Mississippi]] and [[London, England]])
| foundation = {{Start date and age|1993}} in [[Flint, Michigan|Flint]], [[Michigan]]
| key_people = Stanley Stern (Chairman), Elliot Noss (President and CEO)
| industry = [[Internet]] software and services
| location = [[Toronto]], Ontario
| key_people = {{nowrap|Elliot Noss (CEO)}}<br />{{nowrap|Dave Singh (CFO)}}<br />{{nowrap|Bret Fausett (chief legal officer)}}<br />{{nowrap|Justin Reilly (CEO, Wavelo)}}<br />{{nowrap|David Woroch (CEO, Tucows Domains)}}<br />{{nowrap|Robin Chase (chairman)}}<br />{{nowrap|Scott Swedorski (founder)}}<br /><ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=Leadership|url=https://www.tucows.com/about-us/leadership/|access-date=14 May 2020}}</ref>
| products =
| industry = [[Internet]] services<br />{{nowrap|[[MVNO|mobile telecommunications]]}}<br />[[Telecommunications billing|telecom billing]]
| revenue = $78.468 million [[USD]] (2008)<ref name=PCOL2007Financials>[http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=TCX&annual Edgar Online Financials. "TUCOWS INC /PA/ Financials" April 17, 2008.]</ref>
| products = OpenSRS<br />[[Hover (domain registrar)|Hover]]<br />[[Enom]]<br/>Ascio
| services = [[domain name registration]]<br />[[e-mail|email hostings]]<br />[[SSL Certificates]]<br/>[[Internet service provider]]
| revenue = {{increase}} {{US$|link=yes}}329 million (2017)<ref name="tucows.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.tucows.com/investors/financials/|title=Financial Documents|publisher=Tucows Inc. |access-date=April 6, 2017}}</ref>
| operating_income =
| operating_income =
| net_income = $2.075 million [[USD]] (2008)<ref name=PCOL2007Financials />
| net_income = {{increase}} {{US$}}22 million [[USD]] (2017)<ref name=tucows.com />
| num_employees = ~190 (2006)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://resellers.tucows.com/about/investor|title=Tucows Investor Relations|accessdate=2006-07-29}}</ref>
| num_employees = ~1000<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.tucows.com/investors|title=Tucows investors &#124; TCX financial reports and info.|website=Tucows Inc.}}</ref>
| market cap = 24 million USD<ref name=zenobank>{{cite web |url=http://www.zenobank.com/index.php?symbol=TCX&page=quotesearch |title=Company Profile for Tucows Inc (TCX) |accessdate=2008-10-17}}</ref>
| parent =
| parent =
| divisions = [[Ting Inc.|Ting Internet]]<br/>[[Ting Mobile]] (acquired by [[Dish Network|Dish]])<br />Tucows Domains<br />[[Wavelo]]<br/>
| subsid =
| subsid =
| homepage = [http://www.tucows.com/ www.tucows.com]
| homepage = {{URL|https://tucows.com/}}
| footnotes =
| footnotes =
}}
}}
[[Image:Tucows.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Tucows encourages Squishycow photos on Flickr. The Squishycow is the symbol for Tucows.<ref>[http://about.tucows.com/2007/12/07/squishycow-and-the-fish/ Tucows. "Squishycow and the Fish" by James Koole. December 7, 2007.]</ref> {{Dead link|date=September 2008}}]]


'''Tucows Inc.''' is an American-Canadian [[Public company|publicly traded]] Internet services and telecommunications company headquartered in [[Toronto|Toronto, Ontario]], [[Canada]], and incorporated in [[Pennsylvania]], United States.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?CIK=TCX&owner=exclude&action=getcompany|title=EDGAR Search Results|website=www.sec.gov|access-date=2018-10-08}}</ref> The company is composed of three independent businesses: Tucows Domains, [[Ting Inc.|Ting Internet]], and [[Wavelo]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Wavelo Expands Leadership Team with Two New Executive Hires {{!}} TCX Stock News |url=https://www.stocktitan.net/news/TCX/wavelo-expands-leadership-team-with-two-new-executive-r8tniryxzl55.html |access-date=2022-04-27 |website=www.stocktitan.net |date=14 April 2022 |language=en}}</ref>
'''Tucows''' (originally an acronym for '''The Ultimate Collection of [[Winsock]] Software''', a name which has long since been dropped) was formed in [[Flint, Michigan]], [[USA]] in 1993. It [[Incorporation (business)|incorporated]] in Pennsylvania and headquartered in [[Toronto]], [[Ontario]], [[Canada]]. The company is perhaps best known for its popular website directory of [[shareware]], [[freeware]], and [[Demoware|demo]] software packages available to download. A system of mirror sites are maintained to allow the traffic to the site to be distributed among several world wide server locations. Tucows contains software for many major computer platforms including [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]], [[Linux]] and [[Apple Macintosh|Macintosh]], and also older versions of Windows (most notably the [[Windows 3.1x|Windows 3.x]] series).


Originally founded in 1993 as a [[shareware]] and [[freeware]] software download site, Tucows shuttered its downloads business in 2021. Tucows Domains is the second-largest [[domain registrars|domain registrar]] worldwide and operates OpenSRS, Ascio, and [[Hover (domain registrar)|Hover]].
By 2008, Tucows' business model had evolved into four core lines of business: Domain Registration as a wholesale domain name registrar to ISPs, Domain Portfolio Management as a direct navigation advertiser and seller of premium domain names, email services, and retail business.<ref name=PCOLQ42007/> Tucows President Elliot Noss announced in the Q4 2007 earnings call that Tucows is de-emphasizing software libraries<ref name=PCOLQ42007/> and in the Q1 2008 earnings call that Tucows is getting out of web hosting.<ref name=PCOLHostingrader/>


In 2012, Tucows launched [[Ting Mobile]], a [[mobile virtual network operator|wireless service provider]] and used the same brand to launch its [[Fiber to the x|fiber]] [[Internet service provider|Internet provider]] business [[Ting Inc.|Ting Internet]] in 2015. In 2020, Tucows sold its wireless business to [[Dish Network]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=Fletcher |first=Bevin |date=2020-08-03 |title=Dish scoops up Ting Mobile subscribers, taps Tucows for retail platform |url=https://www.fiercewireless.com/operators/dish-scoops-up-270k-ting-mobile-subscribers-taps-tucows-for-retail-platform |access-date=2022-04-27 |website=Fierce Wireless |language=en}}</ref> while they continued to operate Ting Internet.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-08-03 |title=Tucows sells Ting Mobile assets to DISH, changes mobile strategy |url=https://domainnamewire.com/2020/08/03/tucows-sells-ting-mobile-assets-to-dish-changes-mobile-strategy/ |access-date=2022-04-27 |website=Domain Name Wire {{!}} Domain Name News |language=en-US}}</ref> The billing platform Tucows built for Ting Mobile was [[Corporate spin-off|spun off]] into an independent [[OSS/BSS]] SaaS business, Wavelo.<ref>{{Cite web |title=StackPath |url=https://www.lightwaveonline.com/network-automation/article/14232793/tucows-spins-out-wavelo-new-business-to-target-csp-software |access-date=2022-04-27 |website=www.lightwaveonline.com|date=27 January 2022 }}</ref>
The Tucows logo is two [[cattle|cow]]s' heads, a play on the [[homophone]] “two cows”. Additionally, their ratings system uses cow icons.


The company was formed in [[Flint, Michigan|Flint]], [[Michigan]], [[United States]], in 1993. The Tucows logo was two [[cattle|cow]] heads, a play on the [[homophone]] "two cows".
==Company history==
[[Image:Tucows Head Office TO.jpg|250px|right|thumb|Tucows' head office in Toronto.]]
[[Scott Swedorski]] started Tucows in 1993 to provide users with downloads of both [[freeware]] and trial versions of [[shareware]].<ref name=PCOLScott>[http://www.dpdirectory.com/3news009.htm DP Director. "Tucows' founder and president Scott Swedorski announced earlier this week that he has resigned from Tucows" by Al Harberg. November 30, 2003.]</ref> Internet Direct acquired Tucows in 1996.<ref name=PCOLScott/> STI Ventures acquired Tucows in 1999.<ref name=PCOLScott/>


== Origins ==
The company employed roughly 30 employees in [[Flint, Michigan|Flint]] in 1998.{{Fact|date=March 2008}} There were additional employees in Canada.{{Fact|date=March 2008}} [[Scott Swedorski]] personally oversaw day to day activity in the Flint office located in the White House building on Beecher Road in Flint for several years.{{Fact|date=March 2008}}
[[Scott Swedorski]], a Flint native, started working as a computer lab manager at Flint's [[Mott Community College]] in 1991. By late 1992, Swedorski left Mott College to work at the Genesee County Library System as a system administrator for FALCON (Flint Area Library Cooperative Online Network) <ref>{{Cite web|url=http://promaxum.com/about.html|title=Promxum.com -- About Me!|website=promaxum.com|access-date=2018-07-04}}</ref> and saw a need to bring shareware reviews to the public. In 1993 he formed TUCOWS (The Ultimate Collection Of [[Winsock]] Software<ref name="PCOLScott">Al Harberg, [https://web.archive.org/web/20031211121831/http://www.dpdirectory.com/3news009.htm DP Director. "TUCOWS' founder and president Scott Swedorski announced earlier this week that he has resigned from TUCOWS"], November 30, 2003.</ref>) leading all editorial, reviews, HTML programming and scripting.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.notoriouswebmaster.com/2008/07/14/a-brief-history-of-the-cows/|title=A Brief History of the Cows {{!}} Notorious Webmaster|website=www.notoriouswebmaster.com|date=14 July 2008 |language=en-US|access-date=2018-07-04}}</ref>


==Company history==
===Merger with Infonautics===
[[Image:Tucows Head Office TO.jpg|250px|right|thumb|Tucows headquarters in Toronto]]
In 2001 Tucows, Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Infonautics, and after acquiring Tucows, Infonautics changed its name to Tucows, Inc.,<ref name=PCOLInfonautics>[http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/nbreader.asp?ArticleID=17104 Information Today Inc. "Tucows Sells Two Former Infonautics Services" by Paula J. Hane. Augusut 26, 2002.]</ref> a business tactic called a "[[reverse takeover]]." Information Today, Inc. reported on August 26, 2002 that Tucows had sold eLibrary and Encyclopedia.com, its search and reference services properties, to Alacritude, LLC, a Chicago-based company.<ref name=PCOLInfonautics/> Tucows had acquired eLibrary and Encyclopedia.com in a merger with Infonautics, Inc. in August 2001.<ref name=PCOLInfonautics/>


In the early 1990s, Tucows was hosted on university and public servers (much like Yahoo! and Google were in their early stages). TUCOWS' mission was to provide users with downloads of both [[freeware]] and trial versions of [[shareware]]. Internet Direct, owned and operated by John Nemanic, Bill Campbell, and Colin Campbell, acquired Tucows in 1996.<ref name=PCOLScott/> STI Ventures acquired Tucows in 1999.<ref name=PCOLScott/>
===Acquisition of ItsYourDomain.com and Birth of Hover.com===
On July 27, 2007 Tucows acquired ItsYourDomain.com (IYD), another privately held ICANN-accredited wholesale registrar offering domain services through a network of over 2,500 affiliates with over 700,000 domains under management.<ref name=PCOLItsyourdomain/> Tucows paid US$10.35 million in cash for IYD.<ref name=PCOLItsyourdomain/> "From our perspective IYD was perhaps the only substantial wholesale domain registration base that might be available over the next few years, and it's a compatible business that we'll be able to fold in to our existing operations," said Elliot Noss, President and CEO, Tucows Inc.<ref name=PCOLItsyourdomain>[http://blog.domaintools.com/2007/07/itsyourdomain-acquired-by-tucows/ Domain Tools. "ItsYourDomain acquired by Tucows" by Jay Westerdal. July 30, 2007]</ref> ItsYourDomain.com managed 699,951 domains compared to Tucows' 5,919,987, at the time of the sale in July 2007 ItsYourDomain.com's monthly growth of 29,181 exceeded Tucows growth of 21,126.<ref name=PCOLRegistat>[http://www.registrarstats.com/Public/TopDomainChanges.aspx?type=Gain&time=Month Registat. "Domain Names under Management" July, 2007.]</ref> After the acquisition, Tucows decided to merge ItsYourDomain, along with DomainDirect, and NetIdentity to create one new domain name registration service, called [[Hover (Domain Registration Service)|Hover]]. Hover is a simple domain registration service powered by Tucows Inc, that started in July 2008. All IYD, DomainDirect, and NetIdentity customers are forwarded to Hover.com to resume their domain needs.


The company employed roughly 30 employees in [[Flint, Michigan|Flint]], [[Michigan]], in 1998 with additional employees in Canada.{{Citation needed|date=March 2008}} For several years [[Scott Swedorski]] personally oversaw day-to-day activity in the Flint office located in the White House building on Beecher Road.{{Citation needed|date=March 2008}}
===Other acquisitions===
In 2000, Tucows acquired Linux Weekly News.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lwn.net/Articles/264518/|title=LWN.net Weekly Edition for January 17, 2008|accessdate=2008-01-24}}</ref> In 2004, Tucows acquired Mississippi-based Boardtown Corporation, a billing software provider. In January, 2006, Tucows completed its acquisition of certain assets of Critical Path, an outsourced email services provider. On 26 August 2006, Tucows was the winning bidder on an [[eBay]] auction for the web calendar site [[Kiko (software)|Kiko.com]]. In a blog entry about the purchase, it was revealed that they plan on rolling the features of Kiko into their existing email platform.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://about.tucows.com/2006/09/05/why-we-bought-kikocom/|title=Why We Bought Kiko.com|accessdate=2006-09-05}}</ref> In June, 2006 Tucows paid $18 million to purchase [[Mailbank.com Inc]] - a company that owns over 17,000 domain names for common surnames like smith.net or brown.org. Mailbank generates income from [[domain parking|selling advertising on the websites]] of the name-based domains and also from customers who want e-mail accounts with their surname as the domain.


In 2000, Tucows acquired [[LWN.net|''Linux Weekly News'']]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://lwn.net/Articles/264980/|title=Ten-year timeline, part 2: the bubble days|date=2008-01-16|access-date=2008-01-24|website=[[LWN.net|Linux Weekly News]]|last=Corbet|first=Jonathan}}</ref> (which was then "unacquired" in 2002<ref>{{cite web|url=https://lwn.net/Articles/265813/|title=Ten-year timeline part 3: The Tucows years|date=2008-01-23|access-date=2021-01-21|website=[[LWN.net|Linux Weekly News]]|last=Corbet|first=Jonathan}}</ref>).
==Business lines==
On February 7, 2008, Elliot Noss, President of Tucows announced during the Q4 Earnings Call that Tucows had decided to change the way they categorize their lines of business into four lines: Domain Registration, Domain Portfolio, email, and retail business.<ref name=PCOLQ42007/> Noss announced that Tucows is de-emphasizing software libraries.<ref name=PCOLQ42007/> "We have made these changes for a number of reasons; first the emergence of our domain portfolio as an anticipated high growth area of our business, second, the importance of email as a key driver of future growth, third the increased size of our retail business as a result of recent acquisitions, and fourth the de-emphasis of our software libraries," said Noss.<ref name=PCOLQ42007>[http://seekingalpha.com/article/63693-tucows-inc-q4-2007-earnings-call-transcript?source=yahoo&page=1 Seeking Alpha. "Tucows Inc. Q4 2007 Earnings Call Transcript" February 7, 2008.]</ref> On May 7, 2008 Elliot Noss reported during the Q1 2008 Earnings Call that Tucows sees the domain registration business as a strategic asset that feeds two other business lines - the domain portfolio and email services.<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/> "We changed the way that registrars create value out of domain registration, by positioning ourselves to not only take advantage of revenue growth but also to create a long-term asset in the domain name portfolio," says Noss.<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/>


In 2001, Tucows was acquired by [[Infonautics]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Tucows/Infonautics Merger 8k |url=https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/909494/000090949401500020/merger8k.htm |access-date=2022-09-07 |website=www.sec.gov}}</ref> which then changed its name to Tucows,<ref name=PCOLInfonautics>Paula J. Hane, [http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/nbreader.asp?ArticleID=17104 "Tucows Sells Two Former Infonautics Services"], ''Information Today'', August 26, 2002.</ref> a business tactic called a "[[reverse takeover]]". On August 26, 2002, Tucows sold eLibrary and Encyclopedia.com, its search and reference services properties inherited from Infonautics, to Alacritude.<ref name=PCOLInfonautics/>
===Domain Registration===
[[Internet Archive#Web archiving|Internet Archive]] preserves a full copy of the Tucows Software Library,<ref>{{cite web|url= https://archive.org/details/tucows&tab=collection|title= Tucows Software Library|website= archive.org|language= en|access-date= August 12, 2018}}</ref> with thousands of software titles both in the latest versions, as well as in older versions not yet available through Tucows.
Tucows is the third largest ICANN-accredited registrar in the world and the company is the largest publicly traded registrar.<ref name=PCOLRegistat/> Tucows was the first competitive registrar to compete seriously with Network Solutions for market share when Tucows began selling domain names for $10 in January, 2000.<ref name=PCOLNsi>[http://about.tucows.com/2008/04/04/icann-clarifies-domain-portability-rules/ Tucows. "Tucows continues fight for domain name portability" by Ross Rader. April 4, 2008]</ref> Up until 2000 Network Solutions was the only registrar and sold domain names for $30 and up. By the end of the first year of competition in domain names sales Network Solutions' market share had fallen from 100% to 52.9%.<ref name=PCOLNsi/>


In 2004, Tucows acquired Boardtown Corporation, a billing software provider based in [[Starkville, Mississippi]].<ref>{{Cite news|date=22 April 2004|title=Tucows to acquire Boardtown|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/tucows-to-acquire-boardtown/article1136235/|access-date=16 December 2020|website=The Globe and Mail}}</ref>
In the Quarterly Earnings Call for Tucows' third quarter held on November 6, 2007, President Elliot Noss said that Tucows hadn't been "competitive enough around price" in their wholesale domain name business and announced a substantial price cut in Tucows wholesale domain name services.<ref name=PCOLTranscript>[http://seekingalpha.com/article/53108-tucows-q3-2007-earnings-call-transcript Seeking Alpha. "Tucows Q3 2007 Earnings Call Transcript" November 6, 2007.]</ref>


On August 19, 2005, Tucows went public,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.tucows.com/tucows-completes-public-offering/|title=Tucows Completes Public Offering {{!}} Tucows Inc.|website=www.tucows.com|access-date=2016-04-19}}</ref> after completing a secondary offering,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Download SEDAR Filings - Code Verification and Accept Terms of Use |url=https://www.sedar.com/GetFile.do?lang=EN&docClass=8&issuerNo=00022325&issuerType=03&projectNo=00821031&docId=1544930 |access-date=2022-09-28 |website=www.sedar.com}}</ref> listing on the [[Toronto Stock Exchange]] as TC and the [[Nasdaq|NASDAQ]] as TCX.
On February 7, 2008, Tucows President Elliot Noss disclosed in the Q4 2007 conference call that Domain Registration continues to provide Tucows with a strong base of revenue.<ref name=PCOLQ42007/> Domain Registration "is a great driver of new customer relationships," said Noss.<ref name=PCOLQ42007/> "In 2008, we expect this business to continue to grow and feed into our other businesses. Using IYD as a model, we expect to launch a hosted storefront option that will make us much more attractive with very small resellers looking for simple and easy options for selling Tucows service. We also planned on making fundamental enhancement for the user experience for our customers and their end users alike."<ref name=PCOLQ42007/>


In January 2006, Tucows completed its acquisition of certain assets of Critical Path, an outsourced email services provider.<ref>{{Cite news|date=16 December 2005|title=Tucows to acquire Critical Path service|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/tucows-to-acquire-critical-path-service/article1132172/|access-date=16 December 2020|website=The Globe and Mail}}</ref>
On May 7, 2008 Elliot Noss reported during the Q1 2008 Earnings Call that the price reduction that Tucows had put in place in August, 2007 is having the desired effect.<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/> "Renewal transactions are up 18% year-over-year, new transactions from small resellers to whom the price reduction was targeted, are up 15% year on year," said Noss.<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/> "This is a very positive turn around for us in this business segment where we had previously been losing business."<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/> Noss added that there had also been an increase in the deals won in the quarter and that the domain pipeline is growing.<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/> "Our largest competitors in this segment have all moved further away from wholesale to retail, media and corporate services, allowing our focus on this segment to have greater impact and benefit," said Noss.<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/>


In June 2006 Tucows paid $18 million to purchase Mailbank.com Inc, a company that owns over 17,000 domain names for common surnames, such as smith.net and brown.org. Mailbank generates income from ads on its websites (from [[domain parking]]) and also from customers who want e-mail accounts with their surname in the domain name.
On July 28, 2008, Tucows announced that they are rebranding their wholesale services and calling it "Open SRS".<ref name=PCOLOpensrs>[http://opensrs.com/blog/2008/07/re-introducing-opensrs/ Open SRS Reseller Blog. "Re-introducing OpenSRS" July 28, 2008.]</ref>


On June 15, 2006, Noss disclosed that the portfolio of NetIdentity's domain names acquired by Tucows represents at least 68% of surnames in the United States and Europe, and that the cost of the acquisition was $18 million.<ref name=PCOLNetidentityacquisition>[http://seekingalpha.com/article/12787-tucows-podcast-on-its-netidentity-acquisition-transcript "Tucows Podcast on Its NetIdentity Acquisition - Transcript"], ''[[Seeking Alpha]]'', June 15, 2006.</ref> On February 19, 2008, Tucows announced that they were launching a "Personal Names Service" using their portfolio of 39,000 domain names.<ref name=PCOLSurnames/> "The launch of the Personal Names Service marks the complete integration of the surname assets we acquired with NetIdentity into our wholesale channel", said Elliot Noss, President and CEO of Tucows.<ref name=PCOLSurnames>[http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080219/to268.html?.v=67 "Tucows Launches Personal Names Service"], Tucows Press Release, February 19, 2008.</ref>
===Domain portfolio management===
====Income from Domain Portfolio====
Tucows has three sources of income from their Domain portfolio: 1) Income from advertising from pages of domains within their domain name portfolio;<ref name=PCOLDirectnavigation/> 2) Income from sales of domains from their portfolio which is constantly being replenished;<ref name=PCOLTucowssells/> 3) Income from the auction of the steady stream of thousands of domain names that expire every day and become available for resale.<ref name=PCOLAfternic/>


On August 26, 2006, Tucows won an [[eBay]] auction for the web calendar site Kiko.com. The company planned to roll Kiko's features into their existing email platform.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://about.tucows.com/2006/09/05/why-we-bought-kikocom/ |title=Why We Bought Kiko.com |access-date=2006-09-05 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071027071752/http://about.tucows.com/2006/09/05/why-we-bought-kikocom/ |archive-date=October 27, 2007 }}</ref>
=====Income from ads=====
In Tucows' 10-Q filing with the SEC on November 14, 2007, Tucows disclosed that they offer pay-per-click advertising on the pages of domains within their domain name portfolio.<ref name=PCOLDirectnavigation/> When a user types one of these domain names into the command line of the browser (direct navigation), they are presented with dynamically generated links which are pay-per-click advertising.<ref name=PCOLDirectnavigation/> Every time a user clicks on one of the links listed on a web page, it generates revenue for Tucows through their partnership with third-parties who provide syndicated pay-per-click results.<ref name=PCOLDirectnavigation>[http://biz.yahoo.com/e/071114/tcx10-q.html SEC Filings for TCX. "Form 10-Q for TUCOWS INC /PA/" November 14, 2007.]</ref> In their financial reports, Tucows does not break out their advertising income due to Direct Navigation from advertising income from other sources including the download site.<ref name=PCOLDirectnavigation/> However, Tucows announced $1,068,195 in total income from advertising during the quarter ending September 30, 2007.<ref name=PCOLDirectnavigation/>


On July 27, 2007, Tucows acquired ItsYourDomain.com (IYD), another privately held [[ICANN]]-accredited wholesale registrar offering domain services through a network of over 2,500 affiliates with over 700,000 domains under management, paying US$10.35 million.<ref name=PCOLItsyourdomain>Jay Westerdal, [https://web.archive.org/web/20071103094316/http://blog.domaintools.com/2007/07/itsyourdomain-acquired-by-tucows/ "ItsYourDomain acquired by Tucows"], Domain Tools, July 30, 2007</ref> ItsYourDomain.com managed 699,951 domains compared to Tucows's 5,919,987, at the time of the sale in July 2007 ItsYourDomain.com's monthly growth of 29,181 exceeded Tucows growth of 21,126.<ref name=PCOLRegistat>{{Cite web |url=http://www.registrarstats.com/Secure/RegistrarMarketShareMain.aspx |title=Registrar Stats. "Registrar Market Share" April 2017. |access-date=2017-04-06 |archive-date=2017-02-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170226121019/http://www.registrarstats.com/Secure/RegistrarMarketShareMain.aspx |url-status=dead }}</ref>
On February 7, 2008 Tucows President Elliot Noss disclosed in the Q4 2008 conference call that Tucows switched from Google Ads to a new advertising partner in 2007 which led to a revenue increase of over one third.<ref name=PCOLQ42008>[http://seekingalpha.com/article/63693-tucows-inc-q4-2007-earnings-call-transcript?source=side_bar_transcripts Seeking Alpha. "Tucows Inc. Q4 2007 Earnings Call Transcript" February 7, 2008.]</ref> "It is important to note this increase was primarily the results of better yields," said Noss.<ref name=PCOLQ42008/> "The Gem and Surname portions of our Domain Portfolio have not yet been optimized and over the coming months, we expect to improve performance there as well."<ref name=PCOLQ42008/> Noss also disclosed that Tucows is doing a better job of monetizing parked pages and have new tools available "to grade and segment our inventory of domain names, [(which) will enable smarter decisions in domain transactions and therefore more and more profitable transactions."<ref name=PCOLQ42008/>


By June 2008, Tucows had a total of three domain name registration services called ItsYourDomain (IYD), NetIdentity, and DomainDirect. Tucows decided to discontinue these three services, and merge them into one new domain name registration service, called [[Hover (Domain Registration Service)|Hover]]. Hover is a simple domain name registration service powered by Tucows Inc, that started in July 2008. All IYD, DomainDirect, and NetIdentity customers are fulfilled by Hover.com.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://tucowsinc.com/news/2008/12/say-hello-to-hover/ |title=Say Hello to Hover |access-date=2010-08-22 |archive-date=2010-12-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101201103821/http://tucowsinc.com/news/2008/12/say-hello-to-hover/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>
=====Income from domain sales=====
On June 19, 2007 Tucows announced that it has sold approximately 2,500 domain names from its portfolio of domain names for US$3.0 million in a private transaction and that it may earn an additional US$1.2 million from the sale in one year's time if certain performance criteria are met.<ref name=PCOLTucowssells/> "This sale indicates some of the latent value of our domain name portfolio," said Elliot Noss, President and CEO of Tucows Inc.<ref name=PCOLTucowssells/> "As I have stated in the past, we will continue to be opportunistic with our domain name assets."<ref name=PCOLTucowssells>[http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070619/to240.html?.v=53 PRNewswire-FirstCall. "Tucows Sells 2,500 Domain Names" June 19, 2007.]</ref> The cost per domain if the performance criteria are met is $1,680 per premium domain name.<ref name=PCOLTucowssells/> On August 7, 2007 Noss commented on the $3 million sale and said he expected more domain name sales in the future.<ref name=PCOLWholesale/> "We do not think the $3 million in domain name sales in a year will be atypical," said Noss.<ref name=PCOLWholesale/> "It will probably be the average over the next three years, and it will certainly be the average over the next five years. It is still very early days in this market and we would be learning every quarter as we move forward."<ref name=PCOLWholesale>[http://internet.seekingalpha.com/article/43764 Seeking Alpha. "Tucows Q2 2007 Earnings Call Transcript" August 7, 2007.]</ref> Tucows also announced that they had entered into partnership with Domain Distribution Network and NameMedia to offer to over 600,000 premium domains for sale. Tucows' wholesale network supports near-instant transfers of premium names.<ref>[http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070619/to237.html?.v=49 PRNewswire-FirstCall. "Tucows Introduces First Wholesale Premium Domain Name Service" June 19, 2007.]</ref>


On November 6, 2008, Tucows announced that they were launching Butterscotch.com, an online video network with video tutorials to explain Internet technology, starting with 35 video tutorials and plans to reach 500 clips by Spring 2009.<ref name=PCOLButterscotch>[http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/November2008/06/c5625.html "Tucows Sweetens Technology Learning with Butterscotch.com"], Canadian PR Newswire, November 6, 2008.</ref> On October 14, 2011, Butterscotch.com producer Sean Carruthers stated production had been shut down.<ref>[https://twitter.com/globalhermit/status/127544152660520960 Twitter-Sean Carruthers. Butterscotch shut-down]</ref>
On August 16, 2007 Tucows announced that they plan to further monetize their domain portfolio and that they had hired Bill Sweetman as General Manager of the domain name portfolio to develop and execute a strategy to enhance the quality and profitability of Tucows's portfolio.<ref>[http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070816/to489.html?.v=23 PRNewswire-FirstCall. "Tucows Appoints Internet Veteran Bill Sweetman as General Manager of its Domain Name Portfolio" August 16, 2007.]</ref> Sweetman's team reviews and selects domain names from daily lists for possible acquisition by Tucows, grades and prices domain names, and optimizes the landing pages of parked domains.<ref name=PCOLSweetmanjob/> The team also generates reports on data trends and patterns and supports inquires about domain names in Tucows portfolio.<ref name=PCOLSweetmanjob>[http://www.sweetmantra.com/2008/04/want-to-work-wi.html Sweetmantra. "Want to Work with Me at Tucows?" by Bill Sweetman. April 12, 2008.]</ref>


In December 2014, Tucows launched RealNames, offering e-mail service using domain names acquired from Mailbank.com Inc.
On February 7, 2008 Tucows President Elliot Noss disclosed that Tucows is seeing traction in sales of brandable names at prices higher than $10,000.<ref name=PCOLQ42008/> "We are not breaking out the sales of this type at this time. But the traction is there and we believe it will continue," Noss said.<ref name=PCOLQ42008/> "Finally, we expect to continue the sale of domain assets in bundles that we commenced last year. We are very focused on increasing the number of transactions across all of these segments. We expect the Domain Portfolio to be our fastest growing line of business and to grow as a percentage of our total business."<ref name=PCOLQ42008/>


On January 20, 2017, the company acquired [[eNom]] for $83.5 million, making Tucows the second-largest domain registrar in the world.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.tucows.com/tucows-inc-to-acquire-enom-from-rightside/|title=Tucows Inc. To Acquire eNom from Rightside|website=Tucows.com|access-date=2017-04-06|archive-date=2017-02-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202044845/http://www.tucows.com/tucows-inc-to-acquire-enom-from-rightside/|url-status=dead}}</ref>
On February 18, 2008 Tucows that the company was participating in the domain auctions at the annual T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Conference in Las Vegas with a total of five premium domain names up for auction.<ref name=PCOLTraffic2008>[http://about.tucows.com/2008/02/18/tucows-at-traffic-las-vegas-2008/ Tucows Blog. "Tucows at TRAFFIC Las Vegas 2008" by James Koole. February 18, 2008]</ref> Domain Name Wire reported on February 21, 2008 that Tucows' premium domain name "Jewellers.com" sold for $30,000 in Moniker’s live domain auction held at the TRAFFIC convention in Las Vegas from February 18-21, 2008.<ref name=PCOLTraffic2008/><ref name=PCOLMoniker>[http://domainnamewire.com/2008/02/21/moniker-auction-nets-44-million-skiresortscom-sells-for-850000/ Domain Name Wire. "Moniker Auction Nets $4.4 Million, SkiResorts.com sells for $850,000" February 21, 2008.]</ref><ref name=PCOLNextweeksauction>[http://domainnamewire.com/2008/02/15/next-weeks-auctions-are-important-for-domain-industry/ Domain Name Wire. "Next Week’s Auctions are Important for Domain Industry" February 15, 2008.]</ref> Information on the sales price for the other four premium domain names Tucows was planning to list in the auction is not available.<ref name=PCOLTraffic2008/><ref name=PCOLMoniker/><ref name=PCOLNextweeksauction/>


The company announced in January 2021 it was shuttering its Downloads business, as it was no longer essential to the rest of the company's business, but had transferred all of its assets and content to the [[Internet Archive]] prior to its closure.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://www.engadget.com/tucows-downloads-has-finally-been-shut-down-103036388.html | title = Tucows closes its once-popular software download site | first= Nick | last = Summers | date = January 22, 2021 | access-date = January 22, 2021 | work = [[Engadget]] }}</ref>
On May 7, 2008 Elliot Noss reported during the Q1 2008 Earnings Call that Tucows had put a process in place for the regular sale of direct navigation names and had just completed the first sale under the new process for 3,700 domain names for just under $1 million.<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess>[http://seekingalpha.com/article/76205-tucows-inc-q1-2002-earnings-call-transcript?source=yahoo&page=-1 Seeking Alpha. "Tucows Inc. Q1 2008 Earnings Call Transcript" May 7, 2008.]</ref> "We have not only concluded the transaction and nailed down the transaction process, but we now have buyers ready for more," said Noss.<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/> "We have some who sat on the side lines in the first sale and are now eager to get in."<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/> Noss said that Tucows had created the "most efficient means of monetizing the expiring domain name stream of any registrar" and that Tucows had demonstrated the certainty of a regular revenue stream for the domain name business segment.<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/> "Domain Portfolio Services should continue to show great growth for years go come," said Noss.<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/> "It is clearly the growth engine for Tucows for 2008 and looks well up to the task."<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/>


==Business lines==
In reply to a question from Thanos Moschopoulos of BMO Capital Markets, Noss elaborated on the model and how Tucows planned to bring some regularity to the sale of domain names.<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/> "We take a bundle of names that literally are from our perspective, financial assets," said Noss.<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/> "We will then place them essentially in an account that will allow a prescreened group of buyers to follow along through the course of roughly 30 days. They can all watch the names, they can see how they perform, and they can see them using the usual metrics as they as inventory holders are very familiar with. At the end of the process they win."<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/> Noss added that Tucows planned to hold the sales on regular basis which might mean monthly or bi-monthly but that "it is a regular basis where there is always some names under viewing and there are always some names under transaction."<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/>
In July 2008, Tucows [[rebranding|rebranded]] its wholesale services as "Open SRS".<ref name=PCOLOpensrs>[http://opensrs.com/blog/2008/07/re-introducing-opensrs "Re-introducing OpenSRS"], Open SRS Reseller Blog, July 28, 2008.</ref>


As of July 2023, Tucows is the third-largest accredited registrar in the world.<ref>https://domainnamestat.com/statistics/registrar/others Domain name registrations, by registrar</ref>
Noss said that the domain names are good financial investments and that there is no shortage of buyers.<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/> "We have an inflow of names every month," said Noss.<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/> "We think it is appropriate to have an outflow as well."<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/> In the RBC Capital Markets Growth Conference held on October 27, 2008 Noss disclosed that 180,000 domain names expire each month from customers who decide they no longer want the domain names and that Tucows is able to select the ones they want to keep from these domain names.<ref name=PCOLRbc>[http://www.wsw.com/webcast/rbc99/tc.to/ RBC Capital Markets Growth Conference "Tucows Presentation" October 27, 2008.]</ref> Tucows had disclosed in the Q4 2007 conference call that they pick up 6,000 to 8,000 names each month from these expiring domains.<ref name=PCOLQ42007/>


===Domain portfolio management===
=====Income from auction of daily inventory of expired domain names=====
Tucows has three sources of income from its domain portfolio: 1) Advertising from pages of domains within their domain name portfolio;<ref name=PCOLDirectnavigation/> 2) Sales of domains from their portfolio, which is constantly being replenished;<ref name=PCOLTucowssells>[http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070619/to240.html?.v=53 "Tucows Sells 2,500 Domain Names"], PRNewswire-FirstCall, June 19, 2007.</ref> 3) Auction of the steady stream of thousands of domain names that expire every day and become available for resale.<ref name=PCOLAfternic/>
Tucows announced on June 12, 2008 that they have reached an agreement with Afternic to auction Tucows’ large daily inventory of expired domain names.<ref name=PCOLAfternic/> "We have over eight million domains under management and thousands expiring every day, so this deal provides us with a great way to share revenue with our resellers while participating in Afternic’s popular secondary domain name marketplace,” said Bill Sweetman, General Manager of Tucows Domain Portfolio.<ref name=PCOLAfternic>[http://about.tucows.com/media/news/tucows-collaborates-with-namemedia%E2%80%99s-afterniccom-to-auction-daily-inventory-of-expired-domain-names/ Tucows Press Release. " Tucows Collaborates With Namemedia’s Afternic.Com To Auction Daily Inventory Of Expired Domain Names" June 12, 2008.]</ref> Tucows will share 10% of the gross sale price with the reseller for the sale of expired domains that were originally registered through the reseller.<ref name=PCOLExpireddomainauction/> Revenue will be shared automatically without the reseller having to take any additional action.<ref name=PCOLExpireddomainauction>[http://about.tucows.com/2008/06/12/tucows-and-afterniccom-team-up-for-expired-domain-auction/ Tucows Corporate blog. "Tucows and Afternic.com Team Up for Expired Domain Auction" June 12, 2008.]</ref> Sweetman explained that Tucows chose Afternic as a partner even though SnapNames with Register.com and NameJet with NetSol/eNom are the dominant players in expired domains.<ref name=PCOLSmbmarket/> "We believe the bigger and long-term opportunity in the secondary domain market is with the SMB (Small and Medium Sized Business) market, so we chose to work with the one company that really understands that market and how to sell to them," says Sweetman.<ref name=PCOLSmbmarket/> "Afternic also has the most user-friendly marketplace and best customer service of any of the expired name services we evaluated. And with 100,000+ expired domains from Tucows now flowing into their platform, Afternic is a dominant player in expired domains."<ref name=PCOLSmbmarket>[http://domainnamewire.com/2008/06/12/tucows-and-afternic-deal-qa/ Domain Name Wire. "Tucows and Afternic Deal Q&A" June 12, 2008.]</ref>


On November 14, 2007, Tucows disclosed that they offer [[pay-per-click]] advertising on the pages of domains within their domain name portfolio.<ref name=PCOLDirectnavigation/> When a user types one of these domain names into the address of the browser (direct navigation), they are presented with dynamically generated links which are pay-per-click advertising.<ref name=PCOLDirectnavigation/> Every time a user clicks on one of the links listed on a web page, it generates revenue for Tucows through its partnership with third parties who provide syndicated pay-per-click results.<ref name=PCOLDirectnavigation>[http://biz.yahoo.com/e/071114/tcx10-q.html SEC Filings for TCX. "Form 10-Q for TUCOWS INC /PA/"], November 14, 2007.</ref>
=====Direct sales of premium domain names=====
On October 29, 2008 Tucows announced that they would begin direct sales from their inventory of premium domain names under the brand name of [http://www.yummynames.com Yummy Names].<ref name=PCOLYummy>[http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/081029/to964.html Tucows Press Release. "Tucows Opens Hidden Treasure Chest of Premium Domains with YummyNames" October 29, 2008.]</ref> The service was created especially for marketers to obtain a high-quality domain name from Tucows inventory including countryrock.com, divorced.com, lemons.com, listener.com, mygarden.com, thepub.com, tool.com and veggies.com. ""Domain names are a vital component to successfully marketing a brand - whether it's the launch of a new company, website or marketing campaign," said Bill Sweetman, General Manager, YummyNames.<ref name=PCOLYummy/> "A high-quality domain name is short, relevant and most important, easy to remember.<ref name=PCOLYummy/> Customer have the option of purchasing a premium domain name outright or leasing the name.<ref name=PCOLYummy/>


On February 7, 2008, Tucows disclosed that it had switched from [[Google Ads]] to a new advertising partner in 2007, which led to a one-third increase in its revenue.<ref name=PCOLQ42008>[http://seekingalpha.com/article/63693-tucows-inc-q4-2007-earnings-call-transcript "Tucows Inc. Q4 2007 Earnings Call Transcript"], ''Seeking Alpha'', February 7, 2008.</ref>
====Domain Portfolio====
Tucows' domain portfolio includes 180,000<ref name=PCOLRbc/> premium domain names, direct navigation names, surnames, and brandable names.<ref name=PCOLkeydomainnames/>


On May 7, 2008, Tucows announced it put a process in place for the regular sale of direct navigation names.<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess>[http://seekingalpha.com/article/76205-tucows-inc-q1-2002-earnings-call-transcript?source=yahoo&page=-1 "Tucows Inc. Q1 2008 Earnings Call Transcript"], ''Seeking Alpha'', May 7, 2008.</ref> These domain names would come from names that expire each month from customers who decide they no longer want the domain names and that Tucows is able to select the ones they want to keep from these domain names.<ref name=PCOLRbc>[http://www.wsw.com/webcast/rbc99/tc.to/ "RBC Capital Markets Growth Conference"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081219004431/http://www.wsw.com/webcast/rbc99/tc.to/ |date=2008-12-19 }}, Tucows Presentation, October 27, 2008.</ref>
=====Size of domain portfolio=====
On February 20, 2008 Tucows issued a press release dislcosing that the company owns over 180,000<ref name=PCOLRbc/> domain names in its private domain name portfolio.<ref name=PCOLkeydomainnames/> The portfolio includes over 1,000 "gems" - domain names that have the highest potential value in the portfolio including names such as "Jewellers.com," "Actresses.com," "BasketballPlayers.com," and "ProjectManagers.com."<ref name=PCOLkeydomainnames/> Tucows portfolio also includes 39,000 surnames, 22,000 brandable names, and 88,000 direct navigation names.<ref name=PCOLkeydomainnames/> "Over the past two years, Tucows has built a portfolio of domain names that we view as one of the best in the world," said Tucows President Elliot Noss.<ref name=PCOLkeydomainnames/> "We have sold thousands of these names to date, and we will continue to pursue sales of domain names from our portfolio both individually and as bundles."<ref name=PCOLkeydomainnames>[http://about.tucows.com/media/news/tucows-reveals-key-domain-name-portfolio-assets/ Tucows Press Release. " Tucows Reveals Key Domain Name Portfolio Assets" February 20, 2008.]</ref> Domain Name Wire reported on February 21, 2008 that Tucows' premium domain name "Jewellers.com" sold for $30,000 in Moniker’s live domain auction held at the TRAFFIC convention in Las Vegas from February 18-21, 2008.<ref name=PCOLTraffic2008/><ref name=PCOLMoniker/><ref name=PCOLNextweeksauction/> David Goldstein wrote in DomainNews on March 15, 2008 that Tucows is hogging domain names with their portfolio of 150,000 Internet domain names in its private domain name portfolio.<ref name=Goldstein/> "...What is the value to anyone apart from Tucows of them hogging these domain names?" writes Goldstein.<ref name=Goldstein/> "There could be entrepreneurs who could be using these domain names now. Still, it is perfectly legitimate so one must not quibble too much!"<ref name=Goldstein>[http://www.domainnews.com/aftermarket/2008032820/tucows-reveals-key-domain-name-portfolio-assets/ Domain News. "Tucows Reveals Key Domain Name Portfolio Assets" by David Goldstein. March 15, 2008.]</ref>


Tucows announced on June 12, 2008, that they have reached an agreement with Afternic to auction Tucows’ large daily inventory of expired domain names.<ref name=PCOLAfternic/> "We have over eight million domains under management and thousands expiring every day, so this deal provides us with a great way to share revenue with our resellers while participating in Afternic’s popular secondary domain name marketplace”, said Bill Sweetman, General Manager of Tucows Domain Portfolio.<ref name=PCOLAfternic>[http://about.tucows.com/media/news/tucows-collaborates-with-namemedia%E2%80%99s-afterniccom-to-auction-daily-inventory-of-expired-domain-names/ "Tucows Collaborates With Namemedia’s Afternic.Com To Auction Daily Inventory Of Expired Domain Names"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080615031721/http://about.tucows.com/media/news/tucows-collaborates-with-namemedia%E2%80%99s-afterniccom-to-auction-daily-inventory-of-expired-domain-names/ |date=2008-06-15 }}, Tucows Press Release, June 12, 2008.</ref> Tucows will share 10% of the gross sale price with the reseller for the sale of expired domains that were originally registered through the reseller.<ref name=PCOLExpireddomainauction/> Revenue will be shared automatically without the reseller having to take any additional action.<ref name=PCOLExpireddomainauction>[http://about.tucows.com/2008/06/12/tucows-and-afterniccom-team-up-for-expired-domain-auction "Tucows and Afternic.com Team Up for Expired Domain Auction"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080615024613/http://about.tucows.com/2008/06/12/tucows-and-afterniccom-team-up-for-expired-domain-auction/ |date=2008-06-15 }}, Tucows Corporate blog, June 12, 2008.</ref> Tucows chose Afternic as a partner even though SnapNames with Register.com and NameJet with NetSol/eNom are the dominant players in expired domains.<ref name=PCOLSmbmarket>[http://domainnamewire.com/2008/06/12/tucows-and-afternic-deal-qa "Tucows and Afternic Deal Q&A"], Domain Name Wire, June 12, 2008.</ref>
=====Increase in domain portfolio inventory=====
On February 7, 2008 Tucows President Elliot Noss disclosed in the Q4 2007 conference call that the inventory in Tucows Domain portfolio constantly increases.<ref name=PCOLQ42007/> "Please remember we pick up 6000 to 8000 more names each month from expiring domains," said Noss.<ref name=PCOLQ42007/> "We made the decision two years ago to acquire expiring names that we believe add value. Our competitors primarily choose the option names at the time of expiry."<ref name=PCOLQ42007/> In reply to a question from Thanos Moschopoulos of BMO Capital Markets if the ICANN rules change in [[domain tasting]] would have any impact to Tucows, Noss replied, "no".<ref name=PCOLQ42007/> Tucows had previously announced their support for ICANN’s resolution to introduce a fee to discourage domain tasting and Google's decision to drop names added and deleted during the AGP from its AdSense program.<ref name=PCOLIcannproposed>[http://about.tucows.com/2008/01/30/icann-proposed-tasting-fee-a-good-first-step/ Tucows Blog. "ICANN Proposed Tasting Fee a Good First Step" by Adam Eisner. January 30, 2008.]</ref>


On October 29, 2008, Tucows announced that it would begin direct sales from their inventory of premium domain names under the brand name of Yummy Names.<ref name="PCOLYummy">{{Cite web|url=https://finance.yahoo.com/|title=Yahoo Finance - Stock Market Live, Quotes, Business & Finance News|website=finance.yahoo.com}}</ref> The service was created especially for marketers to obtain a high-quality domain name from Tucows inventory.<ref name=PCOLYummy/> Customers have the option of purchasing a premium domain name outright or leasing the name.<ref name=PCOLYummy/> In 2009 one of Tucows' subsidiaries, Buy<!--to avoid false positives when searching for domainsquatted URLs in references-->domains Holdings, sold another premium [[domain name]] for a record $50,000 for [[Myhomepage]].com.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://domainnamewire.com/2009/05/19/myhomepagecom-sells-for-50000/|title=MyHomePage.com Sells for $50,000 - Domain Name Wire &#124; Domain Name News}}</ref>
=====Legal defense of domain name ownership=====
Domain Name Wire reported on February 28, 2008 that Tucows had successfully defended against an arbitration proceeding over the domain name Batchelor.com, that Tucows had acquired as part of its NetIdentity purchase.<ref name=PCOLBatchelor/> The complaint had been filed by Ken Batchelor Cadillac Company, a car dealership in San Antonio, Texas.<ref name=PCOLBatchelor/> The National Arbitration Forum panel determined that the car dealership had not established rights in the mark "Batchelor."<ref name=PCOLBatchelor/> Bill Sweetman, General Manager, Domain Portfolio at Tucows, said that Tucows has won every surname arbitration proceeding it has responded to and that Tucows does not sell domains from its NetIdentity portfolio.<ref name=PCOLBatchelor/> "If we were to sell one of those domains, not only do we sell the business value associated with the surname, but it hurts the overall portfolio," said Sweetman.<ref name=PCOLBatchelor>[http://domainnamewire.com/2008/02/28/tucows-fights-off-car-dealership/ Domain Name Wire. "Tucows Fights off Car Dealership" February 28, 2008.]</ref> "It’s different from a portfolio of generic domains. You don’t think twice about selling one of those for the right price."<ref name=PCOLBatchelor/>


On February 20, 2008, Tucows announced a portfolio of over 1,000 [[domain names]] that have the high potential value such as "Jewellers.com", "Actresses.com", "BasketballPlayers.com", and "ProjectManagers.com".<ref name=PCOLkeydomainnames>{{Cite web |url=http://about.tucows.com/media/news/tucows-reveals-key-domain-name-portfolio-assets |title="Tucows Reveals Key Domain Name Portfolio Assets", Tucows Press Release, February 20, 2008. |access-date=February 20, 2008 |archive-date=March 4, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080304194009/http://about.tucows.com/media/news/tucows-reveals-key-domain-name-portfolio-assets/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>
In another case on September 18, 2007 Weidner Investment Services, Inc. filed a complaint claiming that Weidner was considered a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant had rights and asked the National Arbitration Forum to order the transfer of Weidner.com from Tucows to Weidner.<ref name=PCOLWeider/> Tucows failed to respond to Weidner in the case and the National Arbitration Forum transmitted a Notification of Respondent Default to the parties and on November 7, 2007 ruled that Tucows had to transfer Weidner.com to Weidner Investment Services, Inc.<ref name=PCOLWeider>[http://www.arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/1080246.htm National Arbitration Forum. "Weidner Investment Services, Inc. v. Tucows.com Co." Claim Number: FA0709001080246 November 7, 2007.]</ref>


In February 2008, Tucows successfully defended against an arbitration proceeding over Batchelor.com, which it had acquired as part of its NetIdentity purchase. The complaint had been filed by Ken Batchelor Cadillac Company, a [[car dealership]]. A [[National Arbitration Forum]] panel determined that the dealership had not established rights in the mark "Batchelor". In fact, Tucows has won all surname-related arbitration proceedings.<ref name=PCOLBatchelor>{{Cite web|url=https://domainnamewire.com/2008/02/28/tucows-fights-off-car-dealership/|title=Tucows Fights off Car Dealership|date=February 28, 2008}}</ref>
===Email services===
Tucows provides millions of email boxes through their network of over 9,000 service providers.<ref name=PCOLemail>[http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080131/to207.html?.v=62 Tucows Press Release. "Tucows Announces Enhancement to the Tucows Email Service." January 31, 2008.]</ref> Customers of Tucows fully-hosted email service are provided with POP3, IMAP, WAP and webmail access.<ref name=PCOLemail/> Providers using Tucows Email Service have the option of using Tucows' spam and virus filtering with their current email infrastructure.<ref name=PCOLemail/>


In 2007, Weidner Investment Services filed a complaint claiming that Weidner was its [[trademark]] or [[service mark]] and asked the [[National Arbitration Forum]] to order the transfer of Weidner.com from Tucows to Weidner.<ref name=PCOLWeider/> Tucows failed to respond, and the National Arbitration Forum ordered Tucows to transfer Weidner.com to Weidner Investment Services.<ref name=PCOLWeider>[http://www.arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/1080246.htm "''Weidner Investment Services, Inc. v. Tucows.com Co.''" Claim Number: FA0709001080246], National Arbitration Forum, November 7, 2007.</ref>
====History of email problems====
As part of the NetIdentity acquisition, Tucows had problems migrating retail customers' email from a third party provider to Tucows in-house mail systems in September 2006.<ref name=PCOLItworld/> That migration is the basis for the article "System migration may be the most dangerous thing you ever do" in [[ITworld]].<ref name=PCOLItworld>[http://www.itworld.com/Man/3917/nls_solutions060928/ IT World. "System migration may be the most dangerous thing you ever do" by Joel Shore. September 26, 2006.]</ref>


In January 2017, [[eNom]] was sold to Canadian domain seller Tucows for $83.5M Canadian.<ref name="GW01">{{cite web|url=http://www.geekwire.com/2017/rightside-group-sells-enom-domain-registrar-83-5m-canadian-internet-firm-tucows/|title=Rightside Group sells eNom domain registrar for $83.5M to Canadian internet firm Tucows|last=Richman|first=Dan|date=January 20, 2017|publisher=GeekWire|access-date=2 March 2017}}</ref><ref name="TU01">{{cite web|url=http://www.tucows.com/tucows-inc-to-acquire-enom-from-rightside/|title=Tucows Inc. To Acquire eNom from Rightside|last=Arruda|first=Gustavo|date=January 20, 2017|publisher=Tucows|access-date=2 March 2017|location=Toronto, ON|archive-date=2 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202044845/http://www.tucows.com/tucows-inc-to-acquire-enom-from-rightside/|url-status=dead}}</ref>
Starting August 12, 2008 Tucows Email Service running on their servers designated Cluster A experienced a multi-day outage lasting until the afternoon of Friday, August 15, 2008.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://opensrs.com/blog/2008/08/update-on-cluster-a-email-service-issues/|title=OpenSRS Blog - Update on Cluster A Email Service Issues, August 13, 2008}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://opensrs.com/blog/2008/08/closing-notes-on-the-cluster-a-email-service-interruption/|title=OpenSRS Blog - Closing Notes on the Cluster A Email Service Interruption, August 18, 2008}}</ref> This failure was reported to be the result of a failed head unit
in a NetApp cluster.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://opensrs.com/blog/2008/08/closing-notes-on-the-cluster-a-email-service-interruption/#comments|title=OpenSRS Blog Comments - Closing Notes on the Cluster A Email Service Interruption, August 18, 2008}}</ref> On October 6, 2008 Cluster A again suffered another multi-day outage affecting at least 50% of users and at times all users. <ref>{{cite web|url=http://opensrs.com/blog/2008/10/cluster-a-email-service-issues/|title=OpenSRS Blog - Cluster A Email Service Issues}}</ref> As of the afternoon of October 9, 2008 this cluster was still partially down ("degraded") preventing an unknown number of users from being able to retrieve email. A video of Rick Yazwinski, Principal Engineer at Tucows, was posted by Tucows explaining the problem.<ref name=PCOLYazwinksi>{{cite web|url=http://blip.tv/file/1341576|title=Video of Rick Yazwinksi explaining Email issues}}</ref> Per the video, the root cause of the October outage was not identified until the evening of October 8, 2008 and is described as an NFS lock resource leak attributed to a bug introduced in the 2.6.20 Linux kernel that Tucows was using to connect to their NetApp mail stores.<ref name=PCOLYazwinksi/> NetApp was able to provide a work around and Tucows was able to begin restoring service until the load increased and began thrashing the NetApp causing Tucows to take the system partially down to allow it to catch up under a lighter load.<ref name=PCOLYazwinksi/>


====New direction with email====
===Email services===
Tucows provides millions of email boxes through their network of over 9,000 service providers.<ref name=PCOLemail>[http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080131/to207.html?.v=62 "Tucows Announces Enhancement to the Tucows Email Service"], Tucows Press Release, January 31, 2008.</ref> Customers of Tucows fully hosted email service are provided with POP3, IMAP, WAP and webmail access.<ref name=PCOLemail/> Providers using Tucows Email Service have the option of using Tucows' spam and virus filtering with their current email infrastructure.<ref name=PCOLemail/>
On February 7, 2008 Tucows President Elliot Noss disclosed that Tucows integration of the new email system and the migration of all accounts to the new system is progressing as planned.<ref name=PCOLQ42007/> "During the quarter, we continue to make progress in migrating customers from the legacy system to our new platform," said Noss.<ref name=PCOLQ42007/> "This is simply hard work and it's progressing, as it should."<ref name=PCOLQ42007/> In the same conference call, Noss added that Tucows sees it's email system as an asset to the company. "Our Webmail Client is on par with Yahoo, Google, and Hotmail, more importantly we are focused on making the customer experience superior," said Noss.<ref name=PCOLQ42007/> "Tucows and our service provider partners are in a position to provide a far superior user experience than a mega portal. And as I said at last quarter's call, we have a tremendous sales team in place, which is excited to sell this enhanced service into our channel, and I'm pleased to report we are seeing customer wins and building a solid pipeline."<ref name=PCOLQ42007/> On March 14, 2008 Tucows announced that Rohan Jayasekera had joined Tucows as Director of the Tucows Email Service.<ref name=PCOLRohan>[http://about.tucows.com/2008/03/14/rohan-jayasekera-joins-the-herd/ Tucows. "Rohan Jayasekera Joins The Herd" by Ken Schafer. March 14, 2008.]</ref>


As part of the NetIdentity acquisition, Tucows had problems [[Data migration|migrating]] retail customers' email from a third-party provider to Tucows in-house mail systems in September 2006.<ref name=PCOLItworld>Joel Shore, [http://www.itworld.com/Man/3917/nls_solutions060928 "System migration may be the most dangerous thing you ever do"], ''IT World'', September 26, 2006.</ref>
On May 7, 2008 Elliot Noss reported during the Q1 2008 Earnings Call that Tucows expected to complete the migration to the new email platform by the end of the 2nd quarter.<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/> Noss added that one of the advantages of the migration would be a savings in data center and bandwidth costs. "Average data center costs in the first seven months of this year will be roughly $290,000 per month. In the last five months, it will be less than $90,000 per month," said Noss.<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/> "In fact, data centre and bandwidth costs in 2007 last year were in the range of $3 million for the full year. For 2009, they will be in the range of only $1 million."<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/> Noss also said that once the migration was complete, Tucows expected to begin growing the email business.<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/> "Our sales group was finally able to start going out and building a pipeline again," said Noss.<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/> "Since November of last year, the email sales pipeline has more than tripled. It is now the highest it has even been for email by a fair bet."<ref name=PCOLSalesprocess/>


Starting August 12, 2008, Tucows Email Service running on their servers designated as Cluster A experienced a multi-day outage lasting until August 15, 2008.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://opensrs.com/blog/2008/08/update-on-cluster-a-email-service-issues/|title=OpenSRS Blog - Update on Cluster A Email Service Issues, August 13, 2008}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://opensrs.com/blog/2008/08/closing-notes-on-the-cluster-a-email-service-interruption|title=OpenSRS Blog - Closing Notes on the Cluster A Email Service Interruption, August 18, 2008|access-date=October 8, 2008|archive-date=November 22, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081122182943/http://opensrs.com/blog/2008/08/closing-notes-on-the-cluster-a-email-service-interruption/|url-status=dead}}</ref> On October 6, 2008, Cluster A again suffered another multi-day outage affecting at least 50% of users and at times all users.<ref>{{cite web | url= http://opensrs.com/blog/2008/10/cluster-a-email-service-issues | title= OpenSRS Blog - Cluster A Email Service Issues | access-date= 2008-10-08 | archive-date= 2008-11-22 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20081122150413/http://opensrs.com/blog/2008/10/cluster-a-email-service-issues/ | url-status= dead }}</ref> As of the afternoon of October 9, 2008, this cluster was still partially down ("degraded") preventing an unknown number of users from being able to retrieve email.<ref name=PCOLYazwinksi>{{cite web| url=http://blip.tv/file/1341576| title=Video of Rick Yazwinksi explaining Email issues| access-date=2008-10-09| archive-date=2008-10-12| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081012015552/http://blip.tv/file/1341576| url-status=dead}}</ref>
On January 9, 2009, Tucows scheduled a maintenance window and shut their email servers down for about 4 hours. Unfortunately, a hardware failure occurred which caused their OpenSRS team to need to perform a hard drive restore. This took about 17 hours.


===Retail services===
===Retail services===
On February 7, 2008 Tucows President Elliot Noss disclosed that the division that sells Tucows services to consumers and small businesses and offers personalized email through net identity has grown with some of Tucows' recent acquisitions.<ref name=PCOLQ42008/> "Our fourth line of business is Retail, which has grown through some of our recent acquisitions," said Noss.<ref name=PCOLQ42008/> "Our Retail division sells Tucows services to consumers and small businesses. We offer retail domain registration and other internet through domain direct. We offer personalized email through net identity."<ref name=PCOLQ42008/> In the RBC Capital Markets Growth Conference held on October 27, 2008 Noss explained that Tucows uses retail services as a "testing ground to see what might be next in the market and then roll those into the wholesale channel."<ref name=PCOLRbc/>
Tucows sells services to consumers and small businesses and offers personalized email through net identity.<ref name=PCOLQ42008/> Tucows also offers customers hosting and other services with NetIdentity. Tucows also expected to receive income for [[pay per click]] advertising revenue from [[domain parking]] the surnames.<ref name=PCOLNetidentityacquisition/>


====NetIdentity acquisition====
===Mobile phone services===
In February 2012, Tucows launched a new [[mobile virtual network operator]] in the United States known as [[Ting Inc.|Ting]], which resells voice and data services on the [[T-Mobile US]] network. As of July 2018, the service had approximately 286,000 subscribers.
On June 15, 2006 Noss disclosed that the portfolio of NetIdentity's surnames acquired by Tucows represents at least 68 percent of US and European surnames.<ref name=PCOLNetidentityacquisition>[http://seekingalpha.com/article/12787-tucows-podcast-on-its-netidentity-acquisition-transcript Seeking Alpha. "Tucows Podcast on Its NetIdentity Acquisition - Transcript" June 15, 2006.]</ref> Noss disclosed that the cost of the acquisition was $18 million.<ref name=PCOLNetidentityacquisition/> On February 19, 2008 Tucows announced that they were launching a "Personal Names Service" using their portoflio of 39,000 surname domain names.<ref name=PCOLSurnames/> "The launch of the Personal Names Service marks the complete integration of the surname assets we acquired with NetIdentity into our wholesale channel," said Elliot Noss, President and CEO of Tucows.<ref name=PCOLSurnames>[http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080219/to268.html?.v=67 Tucows Press Release. "Tucows Launches Personal Names Service" February 19, 2008.]</ref>


In 2017, Tucows acquired Canadian [[Mobile virtual network operator|MVNO]] Roam Mobility from Otono Networks.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gibbs |first=Colin |date=2017-09-27 |title=Tucows acquires Roam Mobility from Otono Networks |url=https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/tucows-acquires-roam-mobility-from-otono-networks |access-date=2022-06-02 |website=Fierce Wireless |language=en}}</ref> Roam Mobility ran for three years until it was shut down in June 2020, likely due to travel slowdown from the [[COVID-19 pandemic|COVID-19]] pandemic.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-05-27 |title=Roam Mobility ceasing operations June 30, 2020 |url=https://mobilesyrup.com/2020/05/27/roam-mobility-ceasing-operations-permanently-june-30-2020/ |access-date=2022-06-02 |website=MobileSyrup |language=en}}</ref>
====Income from Retail Services====
On June 15, 2006 Noss disclosed that Tucows will earn income for the 90,000 customers who have email accounts, hosting, and other services with NetIdentity<ref name=PCOLNetidentityacquisition/> of between $3 and $4 million.<ref name=PCOLNetidentityacquisition/> Tucows also expected to receive income for pay per click advertising revenue from domain parking the surnames.<ref name=PCOLNetidentityacquisition/>


On August 3, 2020, Tucows announced that it would sell the Ting Mobile business to [[Dish Network]] (owner of [[Boost Mobile|Boost Mobile]]) and serve as its provider of backend services for its new wireless businesses.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Kastrenakes|first=Jacob|date=2020-08-03|title=Dish's next step into wireless service is buying another small provider|url=https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/3/21352496/dish-ting-mobile-acquisition-tucows-network-tech|access-date=2020-08-03|website=The Verge|language=en}}</ref>
===De-emphasis and divestment of business lines===
====De-emphasis of software downloads====
Tucows maintains a download archive that includes more than 30,000 software titles in its worldwide network of partner sites. Although some listing features are now available only on a for-pay basis, basic listing remains free. The original creator of the Tucows software archive, Scott Swedorski, announced in November 2003 that he had resigned from Tucows.<ref name=PCOLScott/> On March 10, 2006, Tucows Content division closed its satellite office located in [[Flint, Michigan]], [[USA]] and relocated the remaining editorial functions to its corporate head office in Toronto. The Content division now solely operates from the corporate head office in Toronto under the direction of Greg Weir.


As of 2022, Tucows no longer runs its mobile phone service and has shifted focus to software enablement for other providers.
On February 7, 2008 Tucows President Elliot Noss disclosed that Tucows plans to de-emphasize the software download aspect of their business.<ref name=PCOLQ42008/> "In regard to our other de-emphasized businesses such as our content business," said Noss,<ref name=PCOLQ42008/> "we are exploring strategic alternatives to maximize their value to the company and to the shareholders and we'll discuss developments in this regard as appropriate."<ref name=PCOLQ42008/>


===Internet services===
=====Launch of Butterscotch.com=====
On December 15, 2014, Tucows announced its acquisition of the [[Charlottesville, Virginia]] ISP Blue Ridge InternetWorks, which was building a [[Fiber to the premises in the United States|fiber to the home]] network. The services were brought under Tucows' Ting branding.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.cnet.com/news/ting-mobile-follows-google-into-gigabit-broadband-biz/|title=Ting Mobile follows Google into gigabit-broadband biz|last=Reardon|first=Marguerite|work=[[CNET]]|date=2014-12-16|access-date=2016-06-23}}</ref> They began offering symmetrical gigabit fiber internet without bandwidth caps. Since expanding the existing fiber network in Charlottesville, Ting Internet is currently in 12 markets with more on the way.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ting Internet - Crazy fast fiber Internet for US cities |url=https://ting.com/internet |access-date=2022-05-06 |website=ting.com |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Broadband World News - Ting Internet launches in fourth Southern California market |url=https://www.broadbandworldnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=775342 |access-date=2022-05-06 |website=Broadband World News}}</ref>
In the RBC Capital Markets Growth Conference held on October 27, 2008 Noss disclosed that Tucows plans to relaunch their software download site within a few weeks under a new brand name by "taking one of the most popular download sites in the world and freshening it up.".<ref name=PCOLRbc/> On November 6, 2008 Tucows announced that they were launching Butterscotch.com, an online video network that with video tutorials to explain internet technology and that the site was beginning with 35 video tutorials with plans to reach 500 clips by Spring, 2008.<ref name=PCOLButterscotch/> "We're proud of Butterscotch.com's Fall lineup of technology shows and
look forward to adding more content that will wow and educate viewers about technology," said Andy Walker, General Manager, Butterscotch.com.<ref name=PCOLButterscotch>[http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/November2008/06/c5625.html Canadian PR Newswire. "Tucows Sweetens Technology Learning with Butterscotch.com" November 6, 2008.</ref> Skeptics raised questions about the launch of Butterscotch and wondered if the launch made sense in terms of Tucows stated goal to divest non-core assets and focus on its core strengths in its four business lines.<ref name=PCOLSKeptics/><ref name=PCOLHostsearch/> "...creating a site like this is expensive and lots of work (if you plan to execute on it). It certainly seems like a diversion from Tucows’ focus," wrote Andrew Allemann at Domain Name Wire.<ref name=PCOLSKeptics>[http://domainnamewire.com/2008/11/06/butterscotchcom-gives-mixed-message-from-tucows/ Domain Name Wire. "Butterscotch.com Sends Mixed Message from Tucows" by Andrew Allemann. November 6, 2008.]</ref> "Based on its intention to 'divest non-core assets', the move has confused analysts," wrote HostSearch.<ref name=PCOLHostsearch>[http://hostsearch.com/news/tucows_news_7950.asp HostSearch. "Tucows to Sell its Stake in Afilias; Launches Butterscotch.com" November 8, 2008.]</ref>


=== Software (SaaS) ===
====Divestment of web hosting accounts====
In January 2022, Tucows launched Wavelo, a [[software as a service]] (SaaS) company that builds telecom billing and operations software for [[Mobile virtual network operator|Mobile Virtual Network Operators]] and Fiber Internet Services. They have two products: MONOS (Mobile Network Operating System) currently used by [[Dish Network]] and ISOS (Internet Services Operating System) currently used by Ting Internet.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Marek |first=Sue |date=2022-01-26 |title=Tucows takes on the OSS/BSS business with Wavelo |url=https://www.fiercetelecom.com/cloud/tucows-takes-ossbss-business-wavelo |access-date=2022-05-06 |website=Fierce Telecom |language=en}}</ref>
On May 6, 2008 Tucows announced that they are getting out of the web hosting business.<ref name=PCOLhostingdivestment>[http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080506/to431.html?.v=38 Tucows Press Release. "Hostopia to acquire certain shared hosting customer assets of Tucows Retail Service Group" May 6, 2008.]</ref> Ross Rader wrote on the Tucows corporate blog that the decision had been made to simplify the company's offerings.<ref name=PCOLHostingrader>[http://about.tucows.com/2008/05/06/tucows-gets-out-of-shared-webhosting/ Tucows Corporate Blog. "Tucows gets out of Shared Webhosting" by Ross Rader. May 6, 2008.]</ref> "Many of our competitors attempt to provide a 'one-stop internet services shopping experience'" wrote Rader.<ref name=PCOLHostingrader/> "We call this 'the Walmart way'. We believe that we have a much higher chance at succeeding by doing very few things extremely well for our clients."<ref name=PCOLHostingrader/> As part of the divestment Tucows signed an agreement for Hostopia to purchase about 14,000 Domain Direct, NetIdentity and ItsYourDomain.com (IYD) customer web hosting accounts for $1.6 million in cash and would migrate the web hosting accounts to Hostopia's unified web service platform by July 2008.<ref name=PCOLhostingdivestment/> "Rather than trying to compete with companies like Hostopia to offer better hosting services that they do, we are going to focus on making sure that our products work better with their great services than any other provider does," wrote Rader.<ref name=PCOLHostingrader/>


==De-emphasis and divestment of business lines==
====Divestment of equity interest in Afilias====
On November 5, 2008 Tucows announced that it was selling its entire 7.38 percent equity interest in [[Afilias]] for $7.4 million.<ref name=PCOLAfilias/> "This sale is another step in our stated goal to divest non-core assets in order to unlock hidden value for shareholders," said Elliot Noss, President and CEO of Tucows.<ref name=PCOLAfilias/> "The proceeds of the sale provide additional funds that will be used to fund further share repurchases."<ref name=PCOLAfilias>[http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/081105/to331.html?.v=1 Tucows Press Release. "Tucows Sells Equity Interest in Afilias for $7.4 million" November 5, 2008.]</ref> Afilias is the registry operator of the .info and .aero TLDs, and the service provider of the .org generic top-level domain (gTLD), .mobi mobile phone TLD, and a provider of domain name registry services for several countries around the world, including .AG (Antigua and Barbuda), .BZ (Belize), .GI (Gibraltar), .HN (Honduras), .IN (India), .ME (Montenegro), .SC (the Seychelles), and .VC (St. Vincent and the Grenadines).<ref>[http://www.afilias.info/global_registry_services Afilias - Global Registry Services]</ref>


===De-emphasis of software downloads===
==Business strategy and discriminators==
Tucows maintains a download archive that includes more than 30,000 software titles in its worldwide network of partner sites. Although some listing features now have fees, basic listing remains free. Tucows founder Scott Swedorski announced his resignation in November 2003.<ref name=PCOLScott/> On March 10, 2006, Tucows Content division closed its satellite office located in [[Flint, Michigan|Flint]], [[Michigan]], and relocated the remaining editorial functions to its corporate head office in Toronto. On February 7, 2008, Tucows disclosed that Tucows plans to de-emphasize the software download aspect of their business.<ref name=PCOLQ42008/> The download service was finally closed down in January 2021.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20210121184559/https://tucows.com/retired/ Retiring Tucows Downloads], tucows.com, 21 January 2021, archived at the Wayback Machine</ref>
===Reputation and values===
On January 8, 2008, Tucows published an article on their company web site titled "Registrar Reputation and Trust" explaining the company's values and their position on Domain Name Front Running.<ref name=PCOLKoole/> "We work to uphold the rights of Registrants. That means, for example, not putting 60-day locks on domains when a Registrant makes a change to their WHOIS information effectively locking some into a renewal and blocking domain name transfers to other Registrars. That also means having a clear, defined policy surrounding expiry and redemption periods." wrote Tucows employee James Koole.<ref name=PCOLKoole/> Koole says that Tucows has found a way to address the issue of domain tasting.<ref name=PCOLKoole/> "Tucows works to prevent domain name tasting by charging our Resellers a monetary fee on domain name registrations that are cancelled within the five-day Add Grace Period (AGP)," Koole said.<ref name=PCOLKoole/> "Tucows doesn’t use WHOIS query data or search data from our API to front-run domain names," Koole added.<ref name=PCOLKoole>[http://about.tucows.com/2008/01/08/registrar-reputation-and-trust/ Tucows. "Registrar Reputation and Trust" by James Koole. January 8, 2008.]</ref>


===Divestment of web hosting accounts===
On January 30, 2008 Tucows announced that although they support ICANN’s resolution to introduce a fee to discourage domain tasting and Google's decision to drop names added and deleted during the AGP from its AdSense program, Tucows thinks Add Grace Period (AGP) abuse could be further diminished or eliminated by shortening the AGP period to 12 hours or less allowing registrants to correct spelling mistakes that the AGP was originally intended for.<ref>[http://about.tucows.com/2008/01/30/icann-proposed-tasting-fee-a-good-first-step/ Tucows Blog. "ICANN Proposed Tasting Fee a Good First Step" by Adam Eisner. January 30, 2008.]</ref>
On May 6, 2008, Tucows announced that they are getting out of the web hosting business.<ref name=PCOLhostingdivestment>[http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080506/to431.html?.v=38 "Hostopia to acquire certain shared hosting customer assets of Tucows Retail Service Group"], Tucows Press Release, May 6, 2008.</ref> As part of the divestment Tucows signed an agreement for Hostopia to purchase about 14,000 Domain Direct, NetIdentity and ItsYourDomain.com (IYD) customer web hosting accounts and would migrate the web hosting accounts to Hostopia's unified web service platform by July 2008.<ref name=PCOLhostingdivestment/>


===Divestment of equity interest in Afilias===
===Industry comparison of domain portfolios===
On November 5, 2008, Tucows announced that it was selling its entire 7.38% equity interest in [[Afilias]] for $7.4 million.<ref name="PCOLYummy"/> Afilias is the registry operator of the [[.info]] and [[.aero]] TLDs, and the service provider of the [[.org]] [[generic top-level domain]] (gTLD), [[.mobi]] mobile phone TLD, and a provider of domain name registry services for several countries around the world, including .AG (Antigua and Barbuda), .BZ (Belize), .GI (Gibraltar), .HN (Honduras), .IN (India), .ME (Montenegro), .SC (the Seychelles), and .VC (St. Vincent and the Grenadines).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://afilias.info/global-registry-services|title=Global Registry Services &#124; Afilias|website=afilias.info}}</ref>
====Publicly traded companies====
Public disclosures of domain name portfolio holdings by publicly owned companies include the following:
*On February 20, 2008 Tucows issued a press release disclosing that the company owns over 150,000 domain names in its private domain name portfolio.<ref name=PCOLkeydomainnames/> Tucows announced $1.06 million in total income from advertising from direct navigation and other sources during the quarter ending September 30, 2007.<ref name=PCOLDirectnavigation/>


==Reputation==
*David Kesmodel wrote in the Wall Street Journal on November 17, 2005 that Marchex Inc., has a portfolio of more than 200,000 domains.<ref name=PCOLWalstreetstory/> "A year ago, the publicly traded online advertising company paid $164 million for a portfolio of more than 100,000 domains from Name Development Ltd., a British Virgin Islands company," wrote Kesmodel.<ref name=PCOLWalstreetstory/> "Seattle-based Marchex owns sites such as debts.com and camcorders.com, as well as many ZIP Code-oriented sites like 90210.com. Ad revenue from Marchex's direct navigation sites totaled $7.7 million in the third quarter, up from $6.4 million in the second quarter."<ref name=PCOLWalstreetstory/>


===Domain name add grace period (AGP) abuse===
====Privately held companies====
On January 8, 2008, Tucows explained its values and position on [[domain name front running]]: "We work to uphold the rights of Registrants. That means, for example, not putting 60-day locks on domains when a Registrant makes a change to their [[WHOIS]] information effectively locking some into a renewal and blocking domain name transfers to other Registrars. That also means having a clear, defined policy surrounding expiry and redemption periods."<ref name=PCOLKoole/> Tucows addresses [[domain tasting]] "by charging our Resellers a monetary fee on domain name registrations that are cancelled within the five-day Add Grace Period (AGP)", but it "doesn’t use WHOIS query data or search data from our [[application programming interface|API]] to front-run domain names".<ref name=PCOLKoole>James Koole, [http://about.tucows.com/2008/01/08/registrar-reputation-and-trust/ "Registrar Reputation and Trust"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080112155854/http://about.tucows.com/2008/01/08/registrar-reputation-and-trust/ |date=2008-01-12 }}, January 8, 2008.</ref>
Public disclosures of domain name portfolio holdings by privately owned companies include the following:
*David Kesmodel wrote in the Wall Street Journal on November 17, 2005 that BuyDomains Holdings Inc., Waltham, Mass., owned a portfolio of 500,000 domains, including jobfinder.com and travelchoices.com. "It has advertising-oriented domains in 90 "verticals," including travel, music and finance. Kesmodel wrote.<ref name=PCOLWalstreetstory>[http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113200310765396752-FYV6dsilRS0N1fsiVu_bLf_5nI8_20061116.html Wall Street Journal. "Thanks to Web Ads, Some Find New Money in Domain Names" by David Kesmodel. November 17, 2007.]</ref> On February 6, 2006 Frank Michlick wrote that BuyDomains, a division of YesDirect, Inc., owns a portfolio of more than 600,000 domain names.<ref name=PCOLMichlick/> BuyDomains announced on January 23, 2007 that they had acquired 32,000 “.com” domain names.<ref name=PCOLMichlick/> "The acquired one and two word domains are concentrated in the lucrative advertising verticals of finance, travel, education, and recruitment," wrote Michlick.<ref name=PCOLMichlick>[http://www.domaineditorial.com/archives/2006/02/01/buydomains-purchases-portfolio-of-32000-com-domain-names/ Domain Editorial. "BuyDomains purchases portfolio of 32,000 COM domain names" by Frank Michlick. February 1, 2006]</ref>


Although it supports [[ICANN]]’s fee to discourage [[domain tasting]] and [[Google]]'s decision to drop names added and deleted during the AGP from its [[AdSense]] program, Tucows claimed that AGP abuse could be further curbed by shortening the AGP period to 12 hours or less, sufficient time for registrants to correct spelling mistakes—AGP's original purpose.<ref name=PCOLIcannproposed>Adam Eisner, [http://about.tucows.com/2008/01/30/icann-proposed-tasting-fee-a-good-first-step/ "ICANN Proposed Tasting Fee a Good First Step"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080210084515/http://about.tucows.com/2008/01/30/icann-proposed-tasting-fee-a-good-first-step/ |date=2008-02-10 }}, Tucows Blog, January 30, 2008.</ref>
===Shareholder value===
The Wall Street Journal reported on December 7, 2007 that Platinum Management LLC had reported holding a 5% stake in Tucows, according to a Schedule 13D filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.<ref name=PCOLPlatinum/> Platinum said that Tucows' public market valuation does not reflect its intrinsic value despite a "strong history of positive cash flow generation and expansion prospects in 2008" and that Tucows has "an extremely attractive recurring revenue business model as a top-three domain name registrar along with several hidden assets that are misunderstood, including its ad business, premium names business and newly launched hosted e-mail business."<ref name=PCOLPlatinum>[http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20071207-704003.html?mod=wsjcrmain Wall Street Journal. "Platinum Management Reports 5% Tucows Stake" December 7, 2007.]</ref> Mark Nordlicht is the manager and controlling person in Platinum Management.<ref>[http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/909494/000101359407000557/tucows13d-120607.htm SEC Filing. "Schedule 13D" December 7, 2007.]</ref>


===Registrations to sites selling illegal goods and connections to terrorism===
===Investor relations===
On December 21, 2007 Tucows disclosed that they had retained Investor Relations firm, The MKR Group, to provide investor relations and corporate communications services in the United States.<ref name=PCOLInvestorrelations/> "Over the past year we have made significant progress in strengthening our overall business by improving our wholesale domain name and email services and adding to a now large domain portfolio, thereby positioning the company for greater growth and profitability," said Elliot Noss, President and CEO of Tucows.<ref name=PCOLInvestorrelations/> "As a result, we believe this is the ideal time to articulate the Tucows message to investors. An expanded Investor Relations effort in the US will enable us to better communicate our story to Wall Street, increase the overall awareness of the company, and unlock hidden shareholder value," Elliot added.<ref name=PCOLInvestorrelations>[http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/071221/to244.html?.v=63 Yahoo Finance. "Tucows Inc. retains the MKR Group for investor relations counsel"]</ref>


In 2015, the [[U.S. Trade Representative]] included Tucows on its annual "notorious markets" list—the first time it has named a [[domain name registrar]]—in order to set an example for what happens to registrars that do not block or suspend sites that sell illegal goods.<ref>{{cite web|title=2014 Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets|url=https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/2014%20Notorious%20Markets%20List%20-%20Published_0.pdf|website=ustr.gov|date=5 March 2015}}</ref> Tucows responded that it suspended dozens of sites every day, but that "unlike some competitors, it considered all complaints carefully to ensure they were justified".<ref>{{cite news|author1=Krista Hughes |title= U.S. says inaction on online piracy risks public safety|url= https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-piracy-idUSKBN0M121F20150305 |work=Reuters |date=March 5, 2015}}</ref>
==Business prospects for domain registrars==
On February 17, 2008 "Seeking Alpha" published an article by Alistair Croll critiquing the business models of domain registrars and asserting that despite the huge growth in internet sites, domain registrars like GoDaddy, Network Solutions, and Tucows face hard times.<ref name=PCOLBadyear>[http://seekingalpha.com/article/64877-verisign-tucows-it-s-a-bad-year-to-be-a-registrar?source=feed Seeking Alpha. "VeriSign, Tucows: It's a Bad Year To Be a Registrar" by Alistair Croll. February 17, 2008.]</ref> "Two of the major sources of revenue for these companies are premium domains and hosted services. And both are under attack," said Croll.<ref name=PCOLBadyear/> "ICANN wants to end domain tasting. Google’s eating away at hosting margins," Croll added.<ref name=PCOLBadyear/> "Some — like Tucows, wholesaler eNom, and Go Daddy’s Wild West Domains wholesale business — are better positioned to weather the storm by focusing on resellers and local ISPs."<ref name=PCOLBadyear/>


Tucows used to be the domain name registrar for the notorious American [[imageboard]] [[8chan]], which has been delisted by Google for hosting child pornography, and also seen numerous [[swatting]] attacks and terrorist attacks announced and planned by users, notably the 2019 New Zealand Terror Attack.
Croll was not entirely negative and highlighted some areas that could be profitable with opportunities for growth.<ref name=PCOLBadyear/> "There’s still money to be made from premium domains," said Croll.<ref name=PCOLBadyear/> "Tucows, for example, has a name auction service that sells expired names to the highest bidder. These previously active names have a known traffic history, so when they expire it’s easy to know whether they’ll generate money without tasting."<ref name=PCOLBadyear/>
<ref>{{cite news|author1=Thomas Brewster |title=After The New Zealand Terror Attack, Should 8chan Be Wiped From The Web?|url= https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/03/15/after-the-new-zealand-terror-attack-should-8chan-be-wiped-from-the-web/#59e8a7366263 |work=Forbes |date=March 15, 2019}}</ref>
It is also a domain name registrar for the social media platform [[Truth Social]] and the white nationalist website [[Stormfront (website)|Stormfront]].


in 2021, Tucows launched a framework to explain their role in dealing with domain name abuse.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://tucowsdomains.com/making-the-internet-better/ |access-date=2022-06-02 |website=Tucows Inc. |language=en-US |title=Making the Internet better
On February 20, 2008 Tom Millitzer wrote on WHIR that Tucows has almost $80 million in liabilities on its books and it would take almost 10 years to pay it back at the current EBITDA, not including interest.<ref name=PCOLMillitzer/> Millitzer says that Tucows is based on a deferred revenue business model and that the bulk of their liabilities time out every year.<ref name=PCOLMillitzer>[http://www.thewhir.com/blogs/Tom-Millitzer/index.cfm/2008/2/12/Tucows--Has-a-deferred-problem WHIR. "Tucows - Has a deferred problem" by Tom Millitzer. February 12, 2008.]</ref> "Financially speaking there are not many firms like Tucows. They sell millions of little things, sort of like Coca Cola. However, those little things are domain names, selling for lets say $12," said Millitzer."<ref name=PCOLMillitzer/>Since they are paid 'up front' for a specific period, usually one year, the revenues for these are recognized at $1 per month, not the $12 when the transaction occurred. Sort of like cash vs. accrual accounting."<ref name=PCOLMillitzer/>
}}</ref>

In the RBC Capital Markets Growth Conference held on October 27, 2008 Noss disclosed that Tucows had "been through nuclear winter of 2002" and that their management team has been through tough times before but that they see the next one or two years as a "great opportunity to derive value from our own stock" by buying back stock if it remains underpriced.<ref name=PCOLRbc/>


==See also==
==See also==
{{Portal|Canada|Companies|Internet}}
* [[List of Domain Registrars]]
* [[Domain name registrar]]
* [[Hover (domain registrar)]]
{{clear}}

==References==
{{reflist}}


==External links==
==External links==
* [http://www.tucowsinc.com/ Tucows Corporate Website]
* [http://www.tucowsinc.com/ Tucows Corporate Website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060126230612/http://www.tucowsinc.com/ |date=2006-01-26 }}
{{Finance links
* [http://resellers.tucows.com/ Tucows Resellers Info]
| name = Tucows
* [http://www.tucows.com/ Tucows Software Archive]
| symbol = TCX
* [http://www.yummynames.com YummyNames]
| reuters = TCX.O
| bloomberg = TCX:US
| sec_cik = TCX
| yahoo = TCX
| google = TCX
}}


==Citations==
{{reflist|2}}
{{WebManTools}}
{{WebManTools}}
{{authority control}}


[[Category:Software companies of the United States]]
[[Category:Tucows| ]]
[[Category:Domain registrars]]
[[Category:Companies listed on the Nasdaq]]
[[Category:Download websites]]
[[Category:Companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange]]
[[Category:Companies formerly listed on NYSE American]]

[[Category:Software companies of Canada]]
[[es:Tucows]]
[[Category:2005 initial public offerings]]
[[fr:Tucows]]
[[Category:Software companies established in 1993]]
[[Category:1993 establishments in Michigan]]
[[Category:Companies based in Toronto]]

Latest revision as of 01:29, 21 December 2024

Tucows Inc.
Type of businessPublic
Traded as
Founded1993; 31 years ago (1993) in Flint, Michigan
HeadquartersToronto, Ontario
Key peopleElliot Noss (CEO)
Dave Singh (CFO)
Bret Fausett (chief legal officer)
Justin Reilly (CEO, Wavelo)
David Woroch (CEO, Tucows Domains)
Robin Chase (chairman)
Scott Swedorski (founder)
[1]
IndustryInternet services
mobile telecommunications
telecom billing
ProductsOpenSRS
Hover
Enom
Ascio
Servicesdomain name registration
email hostings
SSL Certificates
Internet service provider
RevenueIncrease US$329 million (2017)[2]
Net incomeIncrease US$22 million USD (2017)[2]
Employees~1000[3]
DivisionsTing Internet
Ting Mobile (acquired by Dish)
Tucows Domains
Wavelo
URLtucows.com

Tucows Inc. is an American-Canadian publicly traded Internet services and telecommunications company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and incorporated in Pennsylvania, United States.[4] The company is composed of three independent businesses: Tucows Domains, Ting Internet, and Wavelo.[5]

Originally founded in 1993 as a shareware and freeware software download site, Tucows shuttered its downloads business in 2021. Tucows Domains is the second-largest domain registrar worldwide and operates OpenSRS, Ascio, and Hover.

In 2012, Tucows launched Ting Mobile, a wireless service provider and used the same brand to launch its fiber Internet provider business Ting Internet in 2015. In 2020, Tucows sold its wireless business to Dish Network,[6] while they continued to operate Ting Internet.[7] The billing platform Tucows built for Ting Mobile was spun off into an independent OSS/BSS SaaS business, Wavelo.[8]

The company was formed in Flint, Michigan, United States, in 1993. The Tucows logo was two cow heads, a play on the homophone "two cows".

Origins

[edit]

Scott Swedorski, a Flint native, started working as a computer lab manager at Flint's Mott Community College in 1991. By late 1992, Swedorski left Mott College to work at the Genesee County Library System as a system administrator for FALCON (Flint Area Library Cooperative Online Network) [9] and saw a need to bring shareware reviews to the public. In 1993 he formed TUCOWS (The Ultimate Collection Of Winsock Software[10]) leading all editorial, reviews, HTML programming and scripting.[11]

Company history

[edit]
Tucows headquarters in Toronto

In the early 1990s, Tucows was hosted on university and public servers (much like Yahoo! and Google were in their early stages). TUCOWS' mission was to provide users with downloads of both freeware and trial versions of shareware. Internet Direct, owned and operated by John Nemanic, Bill Campbell, and Colin Campbell, acquired Tucows in 1996.[10] STI Ventures acquired Tucows in 1999.[10]

The company employed roughly 30 employees in Flint, Michigan, in 1998 with additional employees in Canada.[citation needed] For several years Scott Swedorski personally oversaw day-to-day activity in the Flint office located in the White House building on Beecher Road.[citation needed]

In 2000, Tucows acquired Linux Weekly News[12] (which was then "unacquired" in 2002[13]).

In 2001, Tucows was acquired by Infonautics,[14] which then changed its name to Tucows,[15] a business tactic called a "reverse takeover". On August 26, 2002, Tucows sold eLibrary and Encyclopedia.com, its search and reference services properties inherited from Infonautics, to Alacritude.[15] Internet Archive preserves a full copy of the Tucows Software Library,[16] with thousands of software titles both in the latest versions, as well as in older versions not yet available through Tucows.

In 2004, Tucows acquired Boardtown Corporation, a billing software provider based in Starkville, Mississippi.[17]

On August 19, 2005, Tucows went public,[18] after completing a secondary offering,[19] listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange as TC and the NASDAQ as TCX.

In January 2006, Tucows completed its acquisition of certain assets of Critical Path, an outsourced email services provider.[20]

In June 2006 Tucows paid $18 million to purchase Mailbank.com Inc, a company that owns over 17,000 domain names for common surnames, such as smith.net and brown.org. Mailbank generates income from ads on its websites (from domain parking) and also from customers who want e-mail accounts with their surname in the domain name.

On June 15, 2006, Noss disclosed that the portfolio of NetIdentity's domain names acquired by Tucows represents at least 68% of surnames in the United States and Europe, and that the cost of the acquisition was $18 million.[21] On February 19, 2008, Tucows announced that they were launching a "Personal Names Service" using their portfolio of 39,000 domain names.[22] "The launch of the Personal Names Service marks the complete integration of the surname assets we acquired with NetIdentity into our wholesale channel", said Elliot Noss, President and CEO of Tucows.[22]

On August 26, 2006, Tucows won an eBay auction for the web calendar site Kiko.com. The company planned to roll Kiko's features into their existing email platform.[23]

On July 27, 2007, Tucows acquired ItsYourDomain.com (IYD), another privately held ICANN-accredited wholesale registrar offering domain services through a network of over 2,500 affiliates with over 700,000 domains under management, paying US$10.35 million.[24] ItsYourDomain.com managed 699,951 domains compared to Tucows's 5,919,987, at the time of the sale in July 2007 ItsYourDomain.com's monthly growth of 29,181 exceeded Tucows growth of 21,126.[25]

By June 2008, Tucows had a total of three domain name registration services called ItsYourDomain (IYD), NetIdentity, and DomainDirect. Tucows decided to discontinue these three services, and merge them into one new domain name registration service, called Hover. Hover is a simple domain name registration service powered by Tucows Inc, that started in July 2008. All IYD, DomainDirect, and NetIdentity customers are fulfilled by Hover.com.[26]

On November 6, 2008, Tucows announced that they were launching Butterscotch.com, an online video network with video tutorials to explain Internet technology, starting with 35 video tutorials and plans to reach 500 clips by Spring 2009.[27] On October 14, 2011, Butterscotch.com producer Sean Carruthers stated production had been shut down.[28]

In December 2014, Tucows launched RealNames, offering e-mail service using domain names acquired from Mailbank.com Inc.

On January 20, 2017, the company acquired eNom for $83.5 million, making Tucows the second-largest domain registrar in the world.[29]

The company announced in January 2021 it was shuttering its Downloads business, as it was no longer essential to the rest of the company's business, but had transferred all of its assets and content to the Internet Archive prior to its closure.[30]

Business lines

[edit]

In July 2008, Tucows rebranded its wholesale services as "Open SRS".[31]

As of July 2023, Tucows is the third-largest accredited registrar in the world.[32]

Domain portfolio management

[edit]

Tucows has three sources of income from its domain portfolio: 1) Advertising from pages of domains within their domain name portfolio;[33] 2) Sales of domains from their portfolio, which is constantly being replenished;[34] 3) Auction of the steady stream of thousands of domain names that expire every day and become available for resale.[35]

On November 14, 2007, Tucows disclosed that they offer pay-per-click advertising on the pages of domains within their domain name portfolio.[33] When a user types one of these domain names into the address of the browser (direct navigation), they are presented with dynamically generated links which are pay-per-click advertising.[33] Every time a user clicks on one of the links listed on a web page, it generates revenue for Tucows through its partnership with third parties who provide syndicated pay-per-click results.[33]

On February 7, 2008, Tucows disclosed that it had switched from Google Ads to a new advertising partner in 2007, which led to a one-third increase in its revenue.[36]

On May 7, 2008, Tucows announced it put a process in place for the regular sale of direct navigation names.[37] These domain names would come from names that expire each month from customers who decide they no longer want the domain names and that Tucows is able to select the ones they want to keep from these domain names.[38]

Tucows announced on June 12, 2008, that they have reached an agreement with Afternic to auction Tucows’ large daily inventory of expired domain names.[35] "We have over eight million domains under management and thousands expiring every day, so this deal provides us with a great way to share revenue with our resellers while participating in Afternic’s popular secondary domain name marketplace”, said Bill Sweetman, General Manager of Tucows Domain Portfolio.[35] Tucows will share 10% of the gross sale price with the reseller for the sale of expired domains that were originally registered through the reseller.[39] Revenue will be shared automatically without the reseller having to take any additional action.[39] Tucows chose Afternic as a partner even though SnapNames with Register.com and NameJet with NetSol/eNom are the dominant players in expired domains.[40]

On October 29, 2008, Tucows announced that it would begin direct sales from their inventory of premium domain names under the brand name of Yummy Names.[41] The service was created especially for marketers to obtain a high-quality domain name from Tucows inventory.[41] Customers have the option of purchasing a premium domain name outright or leasing the name.[41] In 2009 one of Tucows' subsidiaries, Buydomains Holdings, sold another premium domain name for a record $50,000 for Myhomepage.com.[42]

On February 20, 2008, Tucows announced a portfolio of over 1,000 domain names that have the high potential value such as "Jewellers.com", "Actresses.com", "BasketballPlayers.com", and "ProjectManagers.com".[43]

In February 2008, Tucows successfully defended against an arbitration proceeding over Batchelor.com, which it had acquired as part of its NetIdentity purchase. The complaint had been filed by Ken Batchelor Cadillac Company, a car dealership. A National Arbitration Forum panel determined that the dealership had not established rights in the mark "Batchelor". In fact, Tucows has won all surname-related arbitration proceedings.[44]

In 2007, Weidner Investment Services filed a complaint claiming that Weidner was its trademark or service mark and asked the National Arbitration Forum to order the transfer of Weidner.com from Tucows to Weidner.[45] Tucows failed to respond, and the National Arbitration Forum ordered Tucows to transfer Weidner.com to Weidner Investment Services.[45]

In January 2017, eNom was sold to Canadian domain seller Tucows for $83.5M Canadian.[46][47]

Email services

[edit]

Tucows provides millions of email boxes through their network of over 9,000 service providers.[48] Customers of Tucows fully hosted email service are provided with POP3, IMAP, WAP and webmail access.[48] Providers using Tucows Email Service have the option of using Tucows' spam and virus filtering with their current email infrastructure.[48]

As part of the NetIdentity acquisition, Tucows had problems migrating retail customers' email from a third-party provider to Tucows in-house mail systems in September 2006.[49]

Starting August 12, 2008, Tucows Email Service running on their servers designated as Cluster A experienced a multi-day outage lasting until August 15, 2008.[50][51] On October 6, 2008, Cluster A again suffered another multi-day outage affecting at least 50% of users and at times all users.[52] As of the afternoon of October 9, 2008, this cluster was still partially down ("degraded") preventing an unknown number of users from being able to retrieve email.[53]

Retail services

[edit]

Tucows sells services to consumers and small businesses and offers personalized email through net identity.[36] Tucows also offers customers hosting and other services with NetIdentity. Tucows also expected to receive income for pay per click advertising revenue from domain parking the surnames.[21]

Mobile phone services

[edit]

In February 2012, Tucows launched a new mobile virtual network operator in the United States known as Ting, which resells voice and data services on the T-Mobile US network. As of July 2018, the service had approximately 286,000 subscribers.

In 2017, Tucows acquired Canadian MVNO Roam Mobility from Otono Networks.[54] Roam Mobility ran for three years until it was shut down in June 2020, likely due to travel slowdown from the COVID-19 pandemic.[55]

On August 3, 2020, Tucows announced that it would sell the Ting Mobile business to Dish Network (owner of Boost Mobile) and serve as its provider of backend services for its new wireless businesses.[56]

As of 2022, Tucows no longer runs its mobile phone service and has shifted focus to software enablement for other providers.

Internet services

[edit]

On December 15, 2014, Tucows announced its acquisition of the Charlottesville, Virginia ISP Blue Ridge InternetWorks, which was building a fiber to the home network. The services were brought under Tucows' Ting branding.[57] They began offering symmetrical gigabit fiber internet without bandwidth caps. Since expanding the existing fiber network in Charlottesville, Ting Internet is currently in 12 markets with more on the way.[58][59]

Software (SaaS)

[edit]

In January 2022, Tucows launched Wavelo, a software as a service (SaaS) company that builds telecom billing and operations software for Mobile Virtual Network Operators and Fiber Internet Services. They have two products: MONOS (Mobile Network Operating System) currently used by Dish Network and ISOS (Internet Services Operating System) currently used by Ting Internet.[60]

De-emphasis and divestment of business lines

[edit]

De-emphasis of software downloads

[edit]

Tucows maintains a download archive that includes more than 30,000 software titles in its worldwide network of partner sites. Although some listing features now have fees, basic listing remains free. Tucows founder Scott Swedorski announced his resignation in November 2003.[10] On March 10, 2006, Tucows Content division closed its satellite office located in Flint, Michigan, and relocated the remaining editorial functions to its corporate head office in Toronto. On February 7, 2008, Tucows disclosed that Tucows plans to de-emphasize the software download aspect of their business.[36] The download service was finally closed down in January 2021.[61]

Divestment of web hosting accounts

[edit]

On May 6, 2008, Tucows announced that they are getting out of the web hosting business.[62] As part of the divestment Tucows signed an agreement for Hostopia to purchase about 14,000 Domain Direct, NetIdentity and ItsYourDomain.com (IYD) customer web hosting accounts and would migrate the web hosting accounts to Hostopia's unified web service platform by July 2008.[62]

Divestment of equity interest in Afilias

[edit]

On November 5, 2008, Tucows announced that it was selling its entire 7.38% equity interest in Afilias for $7.4 million.[41] Afilias is the registry operator of the .info and .aero TLDs, and the service provider of the .org generic top-level domain (gTLD), .mobi mobile phone TLD, and a provider of domain name registry services for several countries around the world, including .AG (Antigua and Barbuda), .BZ (Belize), .GI (Gibraltar), .HN (Honduras), .IN (India), .ME (Montenegro), .SC (the Seychelles), and .VC (St. Vincent and the Grenadines).[63]

Reputation

[edit]

Domain name add grace period (AGP) abuse

[edit]

On January 8, 2008, Tucows explained its values and position on domain name front running: "We work to uphold the rights of Registrants. That means, for example, not putting 60-day locks on domains when a Registrant makes a change to their WHOIS information effectively locking some into a renewal and blocking domain name transfers to other Registrars. That also means having a clear, defined policy surrounding expiry and redemption periods."[64] Tucows addresses domain tasting "by charging our Resellers a monetary fee on domain name registrations that are cancelled within the five-day Add Grace Period (AGP)", but it "doesn’t use WHOIS query data or search data from our API to front-run domain names".[64]

Although it supports ICANN’s fee to discourage domain tasting and Google's decision to drop names added and deleted during the AGP from its AdSense program, Tucows claimed that AGP abuse could be further curbed by shortening the AGP period to 12 hours or less, sufficient time for registrants to correct spelling mistakes—AGP's original purpose.[65]

Registrations to sites selling illegal goods and connections to terrorism

[edit]

In 2015, the U.S. Trade Representative included Tucows on its annual "notorious markets" list—the first time it has named a domain name registrar—in order to set an example for what happens to registrars that do not block or suspend sites that sell illegal goods.[66] Tucows responded that it suspended dozens of sites every day, but that "unlike some competitors, it considered all complaints carefully to ensure they were justified".[67]

Tucows used to be the domain name registrar for the notorious American imageboard 8chan, which has been delisted by Google for hosting child pornography, and also seen numerous swatting attacks and terrorist attacks announced and planned by users, notably the 2019 New Zealand Terror Attack. [68] It is also a domain name registrar for the social media platform Truth Social and the white nationalist website Stormfront.

in 2021, Tucows launched a framework to explain their role in dealing with domain name abuse.[69]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Leadership". Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  2. ^ a b "Financial Documents". Tucows Inc. Retrieved April 6, 2017.
  3. ^ "Tucows investors | TCX financial reports and info". Tucows Inc.
  4. ^ "EDGAR Search Results". www.sec.gov. Retrieved 2018-10-08.
  5. ^ "Wavelo Expands Leadership Team with Two New Executive Hires | TCX Stock News". www.stocktitan.net. 14 April 2022. Retrieved 2022-04-27.
  6. ^ Fletcher, Bevin (2020-08-03). "Dish scoops up Ting Mobile subscribers, taps Tucows for retail platform". Fierce Wireless. Retrieved 2022-04-27.
  7. ^ "Tucows sells Ting Mobile assets to DISH, changes mobile strategy". Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News. 2020-08-03. Retrieved 2022-04-27.
  8. ^ "StackPath". www.lightwaveonline.com. 27 January 2022. Retrieved 2022-04-27.
  9. ^ "Promxum.com -- About Me!". promaxum.com. Retrieved 2018-07-04.
  10. ^ a b c d Al Harberg, DP Director. "TUCOWS' founder and president Scott Swedorski announced earlier this week that he has resigned from TUCOWS", November 30, 2003.
  11. ^ "A Brief History of the Cows | Notorious Webmaster". www.notoriouswebmaster.com. 14 July 2008. Retrieved 2018-07-04.
  12. ^ Corbet, Jonathan (2008-01-16). "Ten-year timeline, part 2: the bubble days". Linux Weekly News. Retrieved 2008-01-24.
  13. ^ Corbet, Jonathan (2008-01-23). "Ten-year timeline part 3: The Tucows years". Linux Weekly News. Retrieved 2021-01-21.
  14. ^ "Tucows/Infonautics Merger 8k". www.sec.gov. Retrieved 2022-09-07.
  15. ^ a b Paula J. Hane, "Tucows Sells Two Former Infonautics Services", Information Today, August 26, 2002.
  16. ^ "Tucows Software Library". archive.org. Retrieved August 12, 2018.
  17. ^ "Tucows to acquire Boardtown". The Globe and Mail. 22 April 2004. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  18. ^ "Tucows Completes Public Offering | Tucows Inc". www.tucows.com. Retrieved 2016-04-19.
  19. ^ "Download SEDAR Filings - Code Verification and Accept Terms of Use". www.sedar.com. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
  20. ^ "Tucows to acquire Critical Path service". The Globe and Mail. 16 December 2005. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  21. ^ a b "Tucows Podcast on Its NetIdentity Acquisition - Transcript", Seeking Alpha, June 15, 2006.
  22. ^ a b "Tucows Launches Personal Names Service", Tucows Press Release, February 19, 2008.
  23. ^ "Why We Bought Kiko.com". Archived from the original on October 27, 2007. Retrieved 2006-09-05.
  24. ^ Jay Westerdal, "ItsYourDomain acquired by Tucows", Domain Tools, July 30, 2007
  25. ^ "Registrar Stats. "Registrar Market Share" April 2017". Archived from the original on 2017-02-26. Retrieved 2017-04-06.
  26. ^ "Say Hello to Hover". Archived from the original on 2010-12-01. Retrieved 2010-08-22.
  27. ^ "Tucows Sweetens Technology Learning with Butterscotch.com", Canadian PR Newswire, November 6, 2008.
  28. ^ Twitter-Sean Carruthers. Butterscotch shut-down
  29. ^ "Tucows Inc. To Acquire eNom from Rightside". Tucows.com. Archived from the original on 2017-02-02. Retrieved 2017-04-06.
  30. ^ Summers, Nick (January 22, 2021). "Tucows closes its once-popular software download site". Engadget. Retrieved January 22, 2021.
  31. ^ "Re-introducing OpenSRS", Open SRS Reseller Blog, July 28, 2008.
  32. ^ https://domainnamestat.com/statistics/registrar/others Domain name registrations, by registrar
  33. ^ a b c d SEC Filings for TCX. "Form 10-Q for TUCOWS INC /PA/", November 14, 2007.
  34. ^ "Tucows Sells 2,500 Domain Names", PRNewswire-FirstCall, June 19, 2007.
  35. ^ a b c "Tucows Collaborates With Namemedia’s Afternic.Com To Auction Daily Inventory Of Expired Domain Names" Archived 2008-06-15 at the Wayback Machine, Tucows Press Release, June 12, 2008.
  36. ^ a b c "Tucows Inc. Q4 2007 Earnings Call Transcript", Seeking Alpha, February 7, 2008.
  37. ^ "Tucows Inc. Q1 2008 Earnings Call Transcript", Seeking Alpha, May 7, 2008.
  38. ^ "RBC Capital Markets Growth Conference" Archived 2008-12-19 at the Wayback Machine, Tucows Presentation, October 27, 2008.
  39. ^ a b "Tucows and Afternic.com Team Up for Expired Domain Auction" Archived 2008-06-15 at the Wayback Machine, Tucows Corporate blog, June 12, 2008.
  40. ^ "Tucows and Afternic Deal Q&A", Domain Name Wire, June 12, 2008.
  41. ^ a b c d "Yahoo Finance - Stock Market Live, Quotes, Business & Finance News". finance.yahoo.com.
  42. ^ "MyHomePage.com Sells for $50,000 - Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News".
  43. ^ ""Tucows Reveals Key Domain Name Portfolio Assets", Tucows Press Release, February 20, 2008". Archived from the original on March 4, 2008. Retrieved February 20, 2008.
  44. ^ "Tucows Fights off Car Dealership". February 28, 2008.
  45. ^ a b "Weidner Investment Services, Inc. v. Tucows.com Co." Claim Number: FA0709001080246, National Arbitration Forum, November 7, 2007.
  46. ^ Richman, Dan (January 20, 2017). "Rightside Group sells eNom domain registrar for $83.5M to Canadian internet firm Tucows". GeekWire. Retrieved 2 March 2017.
  47. ^ Arruda, Gustavo (January 20, 2017). "Tucows Inc. To Acquire eNom from Rightside". Toronto, ON: Tucows. Archived from the original on 2 February 2017. Retrieved 2 March 2017.
  48. ^ a b c "Tucows Announces Enhancement to the Tucows Email Service", Tucows Press Release, January 31, 2008.
  49. ^ Joel Shore, "System migration may be the most dangerous thing you ever do", IT World, September 26, 2006.
  50. ^ "OpenSRS Blog - Update on Cluster A Email Service Issues, August 13, 2008".
  51. ^ "OpenSRS Blog - Closing Notes on the Cluster A Email Service Interruption, August 18, 2008". Archived from the original on November 22, 2008. Retrieved October 8, 2008.
  52. ^ "OpenSRS Blog - Cluster A Email Service Issues". Archived from the original on 2008-11-22. Retrieved 2008-10-08.
  53. ^ "Video of Rick Yazwinksi explaining Email issues". Archived from the original on 2008-10-12. Retrieved 2008-10-09.
  54. ^ Gibbs, Colin (2017-09-27). "Tucows acquires Roam Mobility from Otono Networks". Fierce Wireless. Retrieved 2022-06-02.
  55. ^ "Roam Mobility ceasing operations June 30, 2020". MobileSyrup. 2020-05-27. Retrieved 2022-06-02.
  56. ^ Kastrenakes, Jacob (2020-08-03). "Dish's next step into wireless service is buying another small provider". The Verge. Retrieved 2020-08-03.
  57. ^ Reardon, Marguerite (2014-12-16). "Ting Mobile follows Google into gigabit-broadband biz". CNET. Retrieved 2016-06-23.
  58. ^ "Ting Internet - Crazy fast fiber Internet for US cities". ting.com. Retrieved 2022-05-06.
  59. ^ "Broadband World News - Ting Internet launches in fourth Southern California market". Broadband World News. Retrieved 2022-05-06.
  60. ^ Marek, Sue (2022-01-26). "Tucows takes on the OSS/BSS business with Wavelo". Fierce Telecom. Retrieved 2022-05-06.
  61. ^ Retiring Tucows Downloads, tucows.com, 21 January 2021, archived at the Wayback Machine
  62. ^ a b "Hostopia to acquire certain shared hosting customer assets of Tucows Retail Service Group", Tucows Press Release, May 6, 2008.
  63. ^ "Global Registry Services | Afilias". afilias.info.
  64. ^ a b James Koole, "Registrar Reputation and Trust" Archived 2008-01-12 at the Wayback Machine, January 8, 2008.
  65. ^ Adam Eisner, "ICANN Proposed Tasting Fee a Good First Step" Archived 2008-02-10 at the Wayback Machine, Tucows Blog, January 30, 2008.
  66. ^ "2014 Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets" (PDF). ustr.gov. 5 March 2015.
  67. ^ Krista Hughes (March 5, 2015). "U.S. says inaction on online piracy risks public safety". Reuters.
  68. ^ Thomas Brewster (March 15, 2019). "After The New Zealand Terror Attack, Should 8chan Be Wiped From The Web?". Forbes.
  69. ^ "Making the Internet better". Tucows Inc. Retrieved 2022-06-02.
[edit]
  • Tucows Corporate Website Archived 2006-01-26 at the Wayback Machine
  • Business data for Tucows:
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Tucows&oldid=1264201797"