Tucows Acquires NetIdentity

Here comes another job-related entry (hence the cheesecake in the previous one). I’m not above “buying” my readers.

First, let me give you a couple of snippets from the press release:

TORONTO, CANADA (June 15, 2006) – Tucows Inc. (AMEX:TCX, TSX:TC) today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Mailbank.com Inc. (doing business as NetIdentity), a privately held, profitable business owning and managing a domain name portfolio that Tucows believes is one of the Internet’s largest collections of surname addresses.

This acquisition will allow Tucows to offer personalized Internet services through its channel of over 6,000 Internet access and hosting providers. The portfolio includes thousands of the most common surnames (such as smith.net) and will be used to enhance Tucows’ email, web publishing and domain services. For example, Tucows’ channel partners will be able to offer their customers personalized email addresses such as allie@schiffler.com or blog and web addresses like www.dirk.landstrom.com.

According to NetIdentity, their portfolio of domain names covers around 60 to 70 percent of the surnames in North America. As Samuel L. Jackson would put it:

In addition to the press release, there’s also a FAQ which explains the deal quite clearly. (You’ll have to click an “I understand the terms and conditions” button.)

Even better than the FAQ is the podcast (you’ll have to click an “I understand the terms and conditions” button) which features an interview with Tucows CEO Elliot Noss and an interviewer who’ll go far on that velvety-smooth voice of his.

(The podcast is 17MB in size and runs 24 minutes, 43 seconds in length.)