Afilias is taking operational control for the registration of .Info names by buying out the operations of current service provider Tucows.

Afilias was appointed by ICANN to run the official registry for .Info, the first generic top level domain (gTLD). It had in turn given Tucows an exclusive two-year contract to run and manage its gTLD services.

Tucows said that this business, called Liberty Registry Management Services, had failed to meet sales volumes anticipated when the company put the "infrastructure in place to meet the original objectives submitted to ICANN. These unexpected lower volumes pushed our profitability point beyond the first renewal cycle".

Afilias is buying all the shares of LibertyRMS and the deal is constructed as a technology as well as a share purchase. The price and the colour of the paper - shares or greenbacks - are undisclosed. ®