Tucows

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Tucows, Inc.

logo
legal form Incorporated
ISIN US8986972060
founding 1993
Seat Toronto , Canada
sales 97.1 million US dollars
Branch Domain management; Internet service provider
Website www.tucowsinc.com
As of December 31, 2011

Tucows is a publicly traded Canadian company that is one of the three largest registrars of domains after GoDaddy and eNom. Numerous web hosts around the world registered domains through its online service OpenSRS , and Ting, a mobile operator, was launched in the United States and Canada. Tucows was founded in Flint, Michigan and is now based in Toronto.

history

In 1993 Scott Swedorski began developing a website that offered freeware and shareware for free download. This was given the name Tucows, which is an abbreviation for The Ultimate Collection of Winsock Software . The offer was one of the first of its kind and quickly became known nationwide as a source of supply for Windows software. In 1999 Tucows also added Linux software to the downloads. Some Internet service providers set up mirrors for the Tucows software archive, and providers in German-speaking countries were added later. In 1995 Tucows was taken over by the Canadian company ISP Internet Direct , which operated a popular download mirror.

The name Tucows was retained for the entire company. Thereupon Tucows changed from a pure download archive and internet service provider to a domain name registrar after it had applied for approval from ICANN in 1999. As a result, the OpenSRS online service was presented in October 1999 , through which third providers could register domains for their customers without Tucows appearing to them. In the period that followed, the company began to offer domains and SSL certificates from GeoTrust , Thawte and Co. as well as e-mail inboxes via the wholesale system, but to this day no web hosting .

As of August 19, 2005 , the company's shares have been listed on both the American Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange . The sale of domains became the main source of income, which is why Tucows applied several times to manage a top-level domain . This also included the generic address .net , for which the German DENIC wanted to work with the Canadian provider, but was ultimately unable to establish itself. Most recently, Tucows appeared as an applicant for some new top-level domains , such as .online .

In addition to the domain segment, in which Tucows operates, among other things, with the OpenSRS brands for resellers and Hover for end customers , the company has been operating as a mobile operator under the Ting brand since mid-2007 . It does not operate its own cellular network, but uses the Sprint Nextel infrastructure .

In January 2017, Tucows announced the acquisition of the domain registrar eNom from Demand Media .

controversy

In 2006, Tucows got into a legal battle in the United States over the domain spamhaus.org , which was about to be suspended. In this context, Tucows stated that a Canadian company was not bound by the decision of a US court. The ICANN in turn emphasized that one is not responsible for the domain at all, but only the respective registrar Tucows or the registry . The reason for the process was an alleged legal violation by the organization The Spamhaus Project , which classified a third party as a sender of unsolicited advertising .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 2011 Annual Report. (PDF) Tucows, July 27, 2012, p. 43 , accessed on July 21, 2013 (English, 865 KB).
  2. ↑ Florian Hitzelberger: The 30 largest domain registrars. In: domain-right. May 13, 2010, accessed July 22, 2013 .
  3. ^ A b Tucows Inc. History. Tucows, accessed July 22, 2013 .
  4. ↑ Tucows now also brings Linux downloads. In: zdnet.de. January 19, 1999, accessed November 4, 2016 .
  5. ↑ Tucows - Treasure trove for free and shareware. In: PC WORLD. Retrieved July 22, 2013 .
  6. ^ Ten Years of Tucows. In: Web Hosting Monthly. The WHIR, February 20, 2004, accessed July 22, 2013 .
  7. ↑ TUCOWS Launched Open Shared Registry System for Domain Name Registration. Tucows, October 26, 1999, accessed July 22, 2013 (English, press release).
  8. ^ Tucows Announces Full Integration of Geotrust's Suite of Digital Security Services. Tucows, November 18, 2002, accessed July 22, 2013 .
  9. ↑ Florian Hitzelberger: DENIC is going on the offensive. In: domain-right. February 10, 2005, accessed July 22, 2013 .
  10. ^ Florian Hitzelberger: Alliance of three .online applicants. In: domain-right. April 10, 2013, accessed July 22, 2013 .
  11. ^ Zachary Lutz: Tucows launches Ting, a contract-free mobile service on Sprint's network. In: Engadget. February 2, 2012, accessed July 22, 2013 .
  12. ^ Tucows Inc. To Acquire eNom from Rightside , January 20, 2017
  13. ↑ Florian Hitzelberger: ICANN in a bind. In: domain-right. October 20, 2006, accessed July 22, 2013 .
  14. ^ Declan McCullagh: ICANN: Sorry, we can't delete Spamhaus.org's domain. In: CNET. October 11, 2006, accessed July 22, 2013 .
  15. ↑ John Leyden: US court denies request to suspend Spamhaus domain. In: The Register. October 20, 2006, accessed July 22, 2013 .