Tucows Acquires ItsYourDomain.com

[companyone]

Adds Thousands of Wholesale Customers and Over 700,000 Domains Under Management

TORONTO, July 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Tucows Inc. (AMEX:TCX,
TSX:TC) announced today that it has acquired ItsYourDomain.com (IYD), a
privately held, profitable ICANN-accredited registrar offering domain
services through a worldwide wholesale network of over 2,500 affiliates.

Tucows will pay US$10.35 million in cash for IYD with the opportunity
for IYD to realize a further US$1.05 million based on specific targets. The
acquisition is expected to add approximately US$7 million in yearly revenue
and between US$1 and $2 million in adjusted net income in the first 12
months.

"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.
"Additionally, this acquisition gives us some very interesting underlying
technology that we were favorably impressed with that will allow us to more
completely service our customer base."

IYD is positive that its customers will be well served under the Tucows
banner.

"Tucows has a solid reputation within the industry as a
customer-focused organization," said James McKenzie, IYD's CEO. "We're very
confident that as Tucows customers, IYD affiliates will continue to receive
the high level of service and support they have come to expect" added Ted
Cucci, IYD's COO. "It was important to us that any buyer commit to
continuing the services that our customers demand."

A video interview with Elliot Noss and an FAQ concerning this
announcement can be found at about.tucows.com/media.

About ItsYourDomain

Innerwise, Inc. d/b/a ItsYourDomain.com (IYD) is a leading U.S.-based
registrar with more than 700,000 domain names under management. IYD has
operations for retail, large portfolio, and affiliate customers. The
company developed the industry's first transparent affiliate operation that
enables web hosting firms, web design shops, and virtually any other
business to offer its customers domain registration and related services.
Transparent affiliates control the customer's user experience, eliminating
the risk of reseller conflict, while using IYD's infrastructure to
eliminate the need for investment.

About Tucows

tucows Inc. is the largest Internet services provider for hosting
companies and ISPs. Through our network of over 7,000 service providers
around the world we provide millions of email boxes and manage over seven
million domains. Tucows is an accredited registrar with ICANN (the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). Tucows remains one of the most popular software download sites on the Internet. For more information
please visit about.tucows.com.

SOURCE Tucows Inc.


__________
Peace!

 

[fatter]

Is tucows one of the registrars that was gonna auction off our expiring names prior to deletion, I have over a hundred in iyd and like the move

 

[kengreenwood]

Is tucows one of the registrars that was gonna auction off our expiring names prior to deletion, I have over a hundred in iyd and like the move

From http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=r...XXZG6kcvXnVxrtN2w&sig2=Y1gPgIEMn7lDEWhY5YSfrA

PROPOSAL 3: ADOPTING THE 'TUCOWS' MODEL FOR INCLUDING PREVIOUS REGISTRANTS IN THE PROFITS FROM DELETED DOMAIN SALES.
I am by no means sure about this third proposal, but I offer it for discussion and consideration. Under the plan recently floated by Tucows, domain names due to expire/delete would be offered for auction prior to this process, and a share of any profit would be distributed to the previous registrant. This model could also work if the Auction was operated at the Registry level that I propose in PROPOSAL 2. At present the DNS is hindered by the large number of domains that get "warehoused" by mass-registrants. I believe that a model that offered a proportionate share of the profits from the deleting domains market to current registrants might have the effect of freeing up the supply and creating more fluidty in the domain market (so that a higher proportion of domains might actually get used). I am not wholly convinced by this proposal because it may add complexity to a process which should ideally be simple.