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March 27, 2002 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Internet service firm Tucows Inc (tucows.com). said yesterday that it had signed a definitive agreement for the sale of all of the outstanding shares of Liberty Registry Management Services (LibertyRMS), to Afilias Ltd., the ICANN-accredited registrar of .info domain names.
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Liberty RMS is a domain name registry services firm that manages the infrastructure tools, systems and staff that are required to run a Generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) registry or a Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) registry. Afilias is a consortium of 18 domain name registrars worldwide awarded the right to operate the .info registry in November 2000. Liberty RMS currently provides registry operations for the .info domain name to Afilias.
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Under the agreement, Afilias will acquire all of the outstanding shares of LibertyRMS, which are currently owned by Tucows, and all intellectual property associated with LibertyRMS registry software owned by Tucows.
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“The impact of launching the new gTLDs in a difficult economic environment has contributed to monthly volumes being well below those anticipated when Tucows put the infrastructure in place to meet the original objectives submitted to ICANN,” said Elliot Noss, Tucows’ President and CEO of Tucows. “These unexpected lower volumes pushed our profitability point beyond the first renewal cycle? this move is designed to enable Tucows to meet its goal of achieving profitability sooner.”
