Making the Internet better
Who we are
Tucows is the world’s largest wholesale domain registrar. Registrars are companies you can register domain names with. This makes us a key player in maintaining the health, neutrality, and openness of an important but largely invisible part of the Internet: the domain name system (DNS).
What we support
Lots of things, but we’re in a unique position to advocate for a free, open, and healthy Internet.
In our corner of the world, there is rampant DNS AbuseDNS Abuse refers to five broad categories of harmful activity: malware, botnets, phishing, pharming, and spam (when it serves as a delivery mechanism for the other forms of DNS Abuse). and, as advocates for a better Internet, we believe there is a fundamental need for the industry to come together to create a unified approach to handle it. Right now, some registrars, registries, and hosting providers take action on illegal activity, but others do not, and they become a breeding ground for it.
We think that ought to change.
Our commitment as a responsible registrar
The power of a registrar
Understand the complex DNS ecosystem—including the power and limitations of registrars and other industry players.
A well-lit DNS
Our call for the DNS community, ourselves included, to do their part to clean up the Internet.
Report abuse
Understand the different types of DNS Abuse, how to file a report, and our commitment to compliance.
Website content: how it works and who’s involved
To understand how website content is accessed, you must understand what domain names are and how they work. Domain names are a fundamental part of Internet infrastructure that enable us to easily access websites, email servers, and other content. Without domain names, to access a website, you’d have to memorize the IP address where it lives (can you imagine?). With domain names, you just get to type in a memorable string of characters (much easier).
For example, our primary domain name, tucows.com, directs you to our corporate website and is used for all of our employee email addresses—which all end in “@tucows.com.” The company you work for probably has a similar setup.
In short—domain names point to where websites live.
