Tucows

Tucows Inc. is a publicly traded Internet services and telecommunications company, headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest domain registrars and operates Hover, and OpenSRS, a platform for domain resellers. In 2012, Tucows launched Ting, a wireless service provider, and continues to operate its namesake directory of shareware and freeware software downloads.

The company was formed in Flint, Michigan, in 1993. The Tucows logo is two cow heads, a play on the homophone "two cows".

Company history

Scott Swedorski started Tucows in 1993 to provide users with downloads of both freeware and trial versions of shareware. The name originally was an acronym for "The Ultimate Collection Of Winsock Software". Internet Direct, owned and operated by John Nemanic, Bill Campbell, and Colin Campbell, acquired Tucows in 1996. STI Ventures acquired Tucows in 1999.

The company employed roughly 30 employees in Flint, Michigan, in 1998 with additional employees in Canada. Scott Swedorski personally oversaw day-to-day activity in the Flint office located in the White House building on Beecher Road in Flint for several years.