New York, NY (May 24, 2001) – Tucows Inc., a leading distributor of e-business services and applications on the Internet and a provider of wholesale domain name registrations worldwide, announced today that it has launched Liberty Registry Management Services (LibertyRMS), a Top Level Domain registry management service designed to meet the technical needs of any organization responsible for managing a Top Level Domain (TLD) on the Internet.
LibertyRMS has an exclusive agreement with .INFO registry operator Afilias to provide the registry operations for the new generic Top Level Domain .INFO on a global basis. Based on Afilias’ target launch date of August, LibertyRMS will be the second company to provide registry services for unrestricted TLDs on the Internet, after Verisign (Nasdaq: VRSN). Every new registration will generate a registration fee for LibertyRMS.
LibertyRMS Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Tucows Inc., manages the complex technical infrastructure ­ tools, systems and people ­ required to run a Top Level Domain Name Registry. LibertyRMS is founded on LibertyXRS, a standards-based platform that was designed and developed by Tucows to provide maximum reliability, scalability and efficiency for global Top Level Domain operations.
“The launch of .INFO is a watershed event for the Internet,” said Elliot Noss, President and CEO, Tucows Inc. “.INFO will be an unrestricted gTLD that can be used by anyone, anywhere, anytime for any purpose. This new gTLD offers businesses and individuals around the world the opportunity to re-evaluate their Web strategies, expand or create a presence on the Internet, and share information on a global basis.”
“Tucows set out with the goal to create a world class outsourced registry services management platform,” continued Noss. “The result of this effort was a ‘pure’ registry platform – OpenXRS – which is the foundation for LibertyXRS. Tucows created an entire company around this platform that will offer registry services for .INFO ¬≠ and other TLDs in the future ¬≠ in a fair and equitable manner to all registrars and registrants.”
Tucows Inc. is one of the Afilias partners and plans to be a certified registrar of the .INFO gTLD. As such, it will be actively accepting domain name applications in June with the start of the .INFO sunrise period.
In addition to .INFO, Tucows will be a registrar for the new .BIZ gTLD. Tucows’ participation in this gTLD will begin on Thursday, May 24, 2001 with the introduction of trademark or brand protection through the .BIZ registry’s IP Claim Service. For registrants and resellers interested in these two important new gTLDs, go to http://www.opensrs.org/gtld.shtml.
Tucows Inc. recently announced that it has signed a definitive merger agreement with Infonautics, Inc. (NASDAQ: INFO), a provider of personalized information agents and Internet sites. The merger transaction, which is subject to shareholder and certain regulatory approvals, is expected to close during the third quarter of 2001
ABOUT LIBERTYRMS
Liberty Registry Management Services Inc., a Delaware corporation, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tucows formed to provide world class global registry management and administration services for country code, generic and alternate TLD registry delegants. LibertyRMS has a strategic agreement with .INFO registry operator Afilias to provide the registry operations for the new TLD .INFO worldwide.
For information about LibertyRMS, contact:
Naomi Rose, Managing Director, Phone (416) 646-3307
nrose@libertyrms.com
ABOUT TUCOWS
Tucows Inc. is a leading distributor of e-business services and applications on the Internet. With a network of more than 5,000 resellers in more than 100 countries around the world, Tucows is the largest network of its kind. The Tucows site offers more than 30,000 software titles in libraries located around the world, providing users with a fast local download. Tucows is an ICANN-accredited registrar and a leading provider of wholesale domain name registrations for country code and generic TLDs, plus web certificates. For more information, please visit: http://www.opensrs.org or http://www.opensrs.org/multilingual.shtml or http://partner.tucows.com or go to https://www.tucows.com and click on Partner Home.
For information about Tucows, contact:
Dan Klores Communications, Inc. Phone (212) 685-4300
Mark Hazlin/Ed Tagliaferri
mark_hazlin@dkcnews.com / edmund_tagliaferri@dkcnews.com
This news release contains, in addition to historical information, forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements may include statements regarding, for example, the launch and eventual success of the new Top Level Domains, the continued growth of the LibertyRMS and Tucows’ businesses, and the closing of the pending Tucows-Infonautics merger. Such statements are based on management’s current expectations and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements included in this document are based on information available to Tucows as of the date of this document, and Tucows assumes no obligation to update such forward-looking statements.