TUCOWS INC /PA/ - Annual Report: 2013 (Form 10-K)

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

FOR ANNUAL AND TRANSITION REPORTS PURSUANT TO 

SECTIONS 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

(Mark One)

Commission file number 001-32600

Tucows Inc.

(Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in Its Charter)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (416) 535-0123

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ☐  No ☒

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes ☐  No ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☒   No ☐ 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its Corporate Website, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files. Yes ☒  No ☐

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” and “smaller reporting company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of Act). Yes ☐  No ☒

As of June 30, 2013 (the last day of our most recently completed second quarter), the aggregate market value of the common stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant was $64.5 million. Such aggregate market value was computed by reference to the closing sale price per share of $7.44 as reported on the NYSE Amex on such date (after giving effect to the one for four reverse stock split of December 30, 2013). For purposes of making this calculation only, the registrant has defined affiliates as including all officers, directors and beneficial owners of more than ten percent of the common stock of the Company. In making such calculation, the registrant is not making a determination of the affiliate or non-affiliate status of any holders of shares of the registrant’s common stock.

The number of shares outstanding of the registrant’s common stock as of March 17, 2014 was 11,185,384.

TRADEMARKS, TRADE NAMES AND SERVICE MARKS

Tucows®, EPAG®, Hover®, OpenSRS®, Platypus®, Ting® and YummyNames® are registered trademarks of Tucows Inc. or its subsidiaries. Other service marks, trademarks and trade names of Tucows Inc. or its subsidiaries may be used in this Annual Report on Form 10-K (this “Annual Report”). All other service marks, trademarks and trade names referred to in this Annual Report are the property of their respective owners. Solely for convenience, any trademarks referred to in this Annual Report may appear without the ® or TM symbol, but such references are not intended to indicate, in any way, that we or the owner of such trademark, as applicable, will not assert, to the fullest extent under applicable law, our or its rights, or the right of the applicable licensor, to these trademarks. 

TUCOWS INC.

ANNUAL REPORT ON FORM 10-K

For Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Information Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains, in addition to historical information, forward-looking statements by us with regard to our expectations as to financial results and other aspects of our business that involve risks and uncertainties and may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “may,” “should,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “plan,” “estimate,” “expect” and “intend,” and other similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this report include statements regarding, among other things, the number of new, renewed and transferred-in domain names, the competition we expect to encounter as our business develops and competes in a broad range of Internet services, the effectiveness of our intellectual property protection, including our ability to license proprietary rights to network partners and to register additional trademarks and service marks, our belief that the market for domain name registration will trend upward gradually, our belief that it is more likely than not that net deferred assets will be realized; our intent to continue acquisitions of previously owned domain names, the effect of the anticipated generic top-level domain (“gTLD”) expansion by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (“ICANN”) on the number of domains we register and related revenues; the impact on operations and risks relating to our potential participation in ICANN’s new gTLD program; our expectations regarding increases in certain costs and expenses; judgments and assessments regarding the collection of receivables; and our belief that, by increasing the number of applications and services we offer, we will be able to generate higher revenues. These statements are based on management’s current expectations and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. Many factors affect our ability to achieve our objectives and to successfully develop and commercialize our services including:

This list of factors that may affect our future performance and financial and competitive position and the accuracy of forward-looking statements is illustrative, but it is by no means exhaustive. Accordingly, all forward-looking statements should be evaluated with the understanding of their inherent uncertainty. All forward-looking statements included in this document are based on information available to us as of the date of this document, and we assume no obligation to update these cautionary statements or any forward-looking statements, except as required by law. These statements are not guarantees of future performance.

We qualify all the forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K by the foregoing cautionary statements.

PART I

ITEM 1.  BUSINESS

Overview

Our mission is to provide simple useful services that help people unlock the power of the Internet. We accomplish this by reducing the complexity of our customers’ experience as they acquire, deliver or use Internet services such as domain name registration, email and other Internet services.

Our primary distribution channel is a global network of more than 13,000 resellers in over 100 countries who typically provide their customers, the end-users of the Internet, with a critical component for establishing and maintaining an online presence. Our primary focus is serving the needs of this network of resellers by providing superior services, easy-to-use interfaces, proactive and attentive customer service, reseller-oriented technology and agile design and development processes. We seek to provide superior customer service to our resellers by anticipating their business needs and technical requirements. This includes providing easy-to-use interfaces that enable resellers to quickly and easily integrate our services into their individual business processes, and offering brandable end-user interfaces that emphasize simplicity and visual appeal. We also provide “second tier” support to our resellers by email and phone in the event resellers experience issues or problems with our services. In addition, our Network Operating Center provides proactive support to our resellers by monitoring all services and network infrastructure to address deficiencies before customer services are impacted.

We believe that the underlying platforms for our services are some of the most mature, reliable and functional reseller-oriented provisioning and management platforms in our industry, and we continue to refine, evolve and improve these platforms for both resellers and end-users.

Our principal place of business is located in Canada. We report our financial results as two operating segments, Domain Services with three distinct service offerings – Wholesale, Retail and Portfolio and Network Access Services, which derives revenue from the sale of retail mobile phones and services to individuals and small businesses. Our chief operating decision maker regularly reviews our operating results on a consolidated basis, principally to make decisions about how we utilize our resources and to measure our consolidated operating performance. To assist us in forecasting growth and to help us monitor the effectiveness of our operational strategies, our chief operating decision maker regularly reviews revenue for each of our service offerings in order to gain more understanding of the key metrics driving our business. Accordingly, we report revenue in the following service areas:

Wholesale, primarily branded as OpenSRS, derives revenue from its Domain Service and from providing Value-Added Services. The OpenSRS Domain Service manages over 14 million domain names under the Tucows ICANN registrar accreditation and for other registrars under their own accreditations. Value-Added Services include hosted email which provides email delivery and webmail access to millions of mailboxes, Internet security services, publishing tools and reseller billing services. All of these services are made available to end-users through a network of over 13,000 web hosts, Internet service providers (“ISPs”) and other resellers around the world. In addition, we also derive revenue from the bulk sale of domain names and advertising from the OpenSRS Domain Expiry Stream and the Marketing Development Funds we receive from vendors from time-to-time to expand or maintain the market position for their services.

Retail, primarily our Hover and Ting websites, derives revenues from the sale of domain name registration, email services and mobile phone service to individuals and small businesses. Retail also includes our Personal Names Service – based on over 40,000 surname domains – that allows roughly two-thirds of Americans to purchase an email address based on their last name.

Portfolio generates advertising revenue from our domain name portfolio. We also generate revenue by offering names in our domain portfolio for resale via our reseller network and other channels. In addition, we generate revenue from the payments for the sale of rights to gTLD strings under the New gTLD program.

Our business model is characterized by non-refundable, up-front payments, which lead to recurring revenue and positive operating cash flow.

Net Revenues

Wholesale - OpenSRS Domain Service

Historically, our OpenSRS Domain Service has constituted the largest portion of our business and encompasses all of our services as an accredited registrar related to the registration, renewal, transfer and management of domain names. In addition, this service fuels other revenue categories as it often is the initial service for which a reseller will engage us, enabling us to follow on with other services and allowing us to add to our portfolio by purchasing names registered through us upon their expiration.

With the acquisition of EPAG Domainservices GmbH (“EPAG”) in August 2011, we now offer registration services for over 200 TLDs.

Our Domain Service provides our resellers with access to our provisioning and management tools to enable them to register and administer domain names and access to additional services like WHOIS privacy and DNS services, enhanced domain name suggestion tools and access to our premium domain names. We earn fees in connection with each new, renewed and transferred-in registration and from providing provisioning services to resellers and registrars on a monthly basis. Domain registrations are generally purchased for terms of one to ten years, with a majority having a one-year term.

Wholesale – OpenSRS Value-Added Services

We derive revenue from our hosted email service through our global distribution network. Our hosted email service is offered on a per account, per month basis, and provides resellers with a reliable, scalable “white label” hosted email solution that can be customized to their branding and business model requirements. The hosted email service also includes spam and virus filtering on all accounts. End-users can access the hosted email service via a full-featured, multi-language AJAX-enabled web interface or through traditional desktop email clients, such as Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail, using IMAP or POP/SMTP.

We also derive revenue from other Value-Added Services primarily from provisioning SSL and other trust certificates. In addition, we derive revenue from the bulk sale of domain names and advertising from the OpenSRS Domain Expiry Stream.

Other services included in Value-Added Services include web publishing tools and fees we receive from time-to-time from vendors to expand or maintain the market position for their services. In addition, we provide billing, provisioning and customer care software solutions to ISPs through our Platypus billing software.

Retail – Hover

We derive revenues from Hover's sale of retail Internet domain name registration and email services to individuals and small businesses.

Retail - Ting

We derive revenue from Ting's sale of retail mobile phones and services to individuals and small businesses.

Portfolio

We derive revenue from our portfolio of domain names by displaying advertising on the domains and by making them available for sale or lease. When a user types one of these domain names into a web browser, they are presented with dynamically generated links that are pay-per-click advertising. Every time a user clicks on one of these links, it generates revenue for us through our partnership with third-parties who provide syndicated pay-per-click advertising (“parked page vendors”).

Our parked page vendor relationships may not continue to generate levels of revenue commensurate with what we have achieved during past periods. Our ability to generate online advertising revenue from parked page vendors depends on their advertising networks' assessment of the quality and performance characteristics of Internet traffic resulting from online advertisements rendered on their websites. We have no control over any of these quality assessments. Parked page vendors may from time to time change their existing, or establish new, methodologies and metrics for valuing the quality of Internet traffic and delivering pay-per-click advertisements. Any changes in these methodologies, metrics and advertising technology platforms could decrease the amount of revenue that we generate from online advertisements. In addition, parked page vendors may at any time change or suspend the nature of the service that they provide to online advertisers. These types of changes or suspensions would adversely impact our ability to generate revenue from pay-per-click advertising.

Portfolio names are sold through our premium domain name service, auctions or in negotiated sales. The size of our domain name portfolio varies over time, as we acquire and sell domains on a regular basis to maximize the overall value and revenue generation potential of our portfolio. In evaluating names for sale, we consider the potential foregone revenue from pay-per-click advertising, as well as other factors. The name will be offered for sale if, based on our evaluation, the name is deemed non-essential to our business and management believes that deriving proceeds from the sale is strategically more beneficial to the Company. In addition, we generate revenue from the payments for the sale of rights to gTLD strings under the New gTLD program.

Portfolio names that have been acquired from third-parties or through acquisition are included as intangible assets with indefinite lives on our consolidated balance sheet.

We also generate advertising and other revenue through our ad-supported content site, tucows.com. The site primarily derives revenue from banner and text advertising. In addition, their revenue is derived from software developers who rely on us as a primary source of distribution. Software developers use our Author Resource Center to submit their products for inclusion on our site and to purchase promotional placements of their software

Intellectual Property

We believe that we are well positioned in the wholesale domain registration and email markets due in part to our highly-recognized “Tucows” and “OpenSRS” brands and the respect they confer on us as a defender of end-user rights and reseller friendly approaches to doing business. We were among the first group of 34 registrars to be accredited by ICANN in 1999, and we remain active in Internet governance issues.

Our success and ability to compete depend on our ability to develop and maintain the proprietary aspects of our brand name and technology. We rely on a combination of trademark, trade secret and copyright laws, as well as contractual restrictions to protect our intellectual property rights.

We have registered the Tucows trademark in the United States, Canada and the European Union and we register additional service marks and trademarks as appropriate and where such protection is available.

We seek to limit disclosure of our intellectual property by requiring all employees and consultants with access to our proprietary information to commit to confidentiality, non-disclosure and work-for-hire agreements. All of our employees are required to sign confidentiality and non-use agreements, which provide that any rights they may have in copyrightable works or patentable technologies accrue to us. Before entering into discussions with potential vendors and partners about our business and technologies, we require them to enter into a non-disclosure agreement. If these discussions result in a license or other business relationship, we also generally require that the agreement containing the parties’ rights and obligations include provisions for the protection of its intellectual property rights.

Customers

The majority of the customers to whom we provide Reseller Services are generally either web hosts or ISPs. A small number are consultants and designers providing our services to their business clients. Our Retail Services customers are a very broad mix of consumers, small businesses and corporations.

No customer represented more than 10% of our consolidated revenues in any of the last three fiscal years.

While web hosts and ISPs are capitalizing on the growth in Internet usage and the demand for new services, they also face significant competition from numerous other service providers with competitive or comparable offerings. This has led such web hosts and ISPs to focus on core competencies, as such resellers are increasingly seeking to outsource non-core services. Outsourcing enables these resellers to better focus on customer acquisition and retention efforts by eliminating the need to own, develop and support non-core applications in-house.

Seasonality

During the summer months and certain other times of the year, such as major holidays, Internet usage often declines. As a result, many of our services (OpenSRS, Hover and Tucows.com) may experience reduced demand during these times.

For example, our experience shows that new domain registrations and traffic on our download site decline during the summer months and around the year-end holidays. Seasonality may also affect advertising, which may have a slight impact on advertisement-based revenue. These seasonal effects could cause fluctuations in our financial results as well as the content site’s performance statistics reported and measured by leading Internet audience measurement services such as comScore.

Competition

Our competition may be divided into the following groups:

We expect to continue to experience significant competition from the competitors identified above and, as our business continues to develop, we expect to encounter competition from other providers of Internet services. Service providers, Internet portals, web hosting companies, email hosting companies, outsourced application companies, country code registries and major telecommunication firms may broaden their services to include services we offer.

We believe the primary competitive factors in our Reseller Services are:

Although we encounter pricing pressure in many markets in which we compete, we believe the effects of that pressure are mitigated by the fact that we deliver a high degree of value to our resellers through our business and technical practices. We believe our status as a trusted supplier also allows us to mitigate the effects of this type of competition. We believe that the long-term relationships we have made with many resellers results in a sense of certainty that would not be available to those resellers through a competitor.

Employees

As of December 31, 2013, we had approximately 200 full-time employees. None of our employees are currently represented by a labor union. We consider our relations with our employees to be good.

Corporate Information

We were incorporated under the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in November 1992 under the name Infonautics, Inc. In August 2001, we completed our acquisition of Tucows Inc., a Delaware corporation, and we changed our name from Infonautics, Inc. to Tucows Inc. Our principal executive offices are located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and we have offices in Germany, the Netherlands and the United States of America.

Executive Officers of the Registrant

The following table sets forth the names, ages and titles of persons currently serving as our executive officers.

Elliot Noss has served as our President and Chief Executive Officer since May 1999 and served as Vice President of Corporate Services for Tucows Interactive Limited, which was acquired by Tucows in May 1999, from April 1997 to May 1999.

Michael Cooperman has served as our Chief Financial Officer since January 2000. From October 1997 to September 1999, Mr. Cooperman was the Chief Executive Officer of Archer Enterprise Systems Inc., a developer of sales force automation software.

David Woroch has served as our Executive Vice President, Sales and Support since June 3, 2009 and served as our Vice President Sales and Support since July 2001. From March 2000 to July 2001, Mr. Woroch served as our Director of Sales for North America. Before joining us, Mr. Woroch spent 13 years at IBM Canada in a variety of roles including sales, marketing, finance and strategic planning.

Investor Information

The public may read and copy any materials we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, at the SEC’s Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, NE, Washington, DC 20549 on official business days during the hours of 10:00 am to 3:00 pm. The public may obtain information on the operation of the Public Reference Room by calling 1-800-SEC-0330. The SEC maintains an Internet site that contains reports, proxy and information statements and other information regarding issuers that file electronically at http://sec.gov.

Our web site address is tucows.com. We make available through our web site, free of charge, copies of our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as soon as reasonably practicable after filing such material electronically or otherwise furnishing it to the SEC.

The information on the web site listed above is not and should not be considered part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K and is not incorporated by reference in this document.

We were incorporated in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in November 1992. Our executive offices are located at 96 Mowat Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6K 3M1. Our telephone number is (416) 535-0123.

ITEM 1A.  RISK FACTORS

Our business faces significant risks. Some of the following risks relate principally to our business and the industry and statutory and regulatory environment in which we operate. Other risks relate principally to the securities markets and ownership of our stock. The risks described below may not be the only risks we face. Additional risks that we do not yet know of or that we currently think are immaterial may also impair our business operations. If any of the events or circumstances described in the following risk factors actually occur, our business, financial condition or results of operations could suffer, and the trading price of our common stock could decline.

Risks Related to Our Business and Industry

We may not be able to maintain or improve our competitive position and may be forced to reduce our prices because of strong competition in the market for Internet services generally and domain name registration, in particular, which we expect will continue to intensify.

The market for Internet services generally and domain registrations in particular is intensely competitive and rapidly evolving as participants strive to protect their current market share and improve their competitive position, and we expect competition to intensify in the future. Most of our existing competitors are also expanding the variety of services that they offer. These competitors include, among others, domain name registrars, website design firms, website hosting companies, Internet service providers, Internet portals and search engine companies, including Google, Microsoft, Web.com, GoDaddy, VeriSign and Yahoo!. Competitors like Microsoft, Google and Yahoo!, as well as other large Internet companies, have the ability to offer these services for free or at a reduced price as part of a bundle with other service offerings. If these companies decide to devote greater resources to the development, promotion and sale of these new products and services, greater numbers of individuals and businesses may choose to use these competitors as their starting point for creating an online presence and as a general platform for running their online business operations. In particular, VeriSign may in the future decide to offer additional services that compete with our domain name registration services or other services. If VeriSign were to become a competitor of ours in our core business areas, VeriSign would likely enjoy a number of competitive advantages, including its position as the largest registry, as well as superior financial and operational resources and customer awareness within our industry.

In addition, these and other large competitors, in an attempt to gain market share, may offer aggressive price discounts on the services they offer. These pricing pressures may require us to match these discounts in order to remain competitive, which would reduce our margins, or cause us to lose customers who decide to purchase the discounted service offerings of our competitors. As a result of these factors, in the future it may become increasingly difficult for us to compete successfully

We also face significant competition from other existing registrars and the continued introduction of new registrars in the domain registration industry. Currently ICANN has approximately 1,000 registrars who register domain names in one or more of the generic top level domains, or gTLDs, that it oversees. Not all of these accredited registrars, however, are operational. There are relatively few barriers to entry in this market, so as this market continues to develop we expect the number of competitors to increase. The continued entry into the domain registration industry and the rapid growth of some competitive registrars and service providers who have already entered the industry may make it difficult for us to maintain our current market share. As a result, we may not be able to compete effectively.

In addition, we cannot predict the impact ICANN’s New gTLD Program will have on the domain name industry. The New gTLD Program's goals include enhancing competition and consumer choice, and enabling the benefits of innovation via the introduction of a wide range of new gTLDs. In June 2012, ICANN announced that it had received over 1,900 applications through which over 1,300 new gTLDs could become available in the next few years on a rolling basis related to over 1,400 new gTLDs. As of February 26, 2014 ICANN has delegated and introduced 160 of these new gTLDs into the Root Zone. We believe that the introduction of the wide range of new gTLDs, once completed, will result in an increase in the number of domains we register and related revenues commencing in 2014. In addition, while the delegation of New gTLDs could substantially change the domain name industry in unexpected ways, we believe that the New gTLD Program will provide us with new revenue opportunities commencing in 2014. The New gTLD Program is a new, complex and untested process and if we do not properly manage our response to any resulting changes in the business environment, it could adversely impact our competitive position or market share.

Each registry and the ICANN regulatory body impose a charge upon the registrar for the administration of each domain registration. If these fees increase, this may have a significant impact upon our operating results.

Each registry typically imposes a fee in association with the registration of each domain. For example, Verisign, the registry for .com, presently charges a $7.85 fee for each .com registration and ICANN currently charges a $0.18 fee for each .com domain name registered in the generic top level domains, or gTLDs, that fall within its purview. We have no control over these agencies and cannot predict when they may increase their respective fees. In terms of the current registry agreement between ICANN and Verisign that was approved by the U.S. Department of Commerce in November 2012, VeriSign will continue as the exclusive registry for the .com gTLD until November 2018. In addition, pricing of new gTLDs is generally not set or controlled by ICANN, which could result in aggressive price increases on any particularly successful new gTLDs. The increase in these fees with respect to any gTLDs either must be included in the prices we charge to our service providers, imposed as a surcharge or absorbed by us. If we absorb such cost increases or if surcharges act as a deterrent to registration, our profits may be adversely impacted by these third-party fees.

We rely on our network of resellers to renew their domain registrations through us and to distribute our services, and if we are unable to maintain these relationships or establish new relationships, our revenues will decline.

The growth of our business depends on, among other things, our resellers’ renewal of their customers’ domain registrations through us. Resellers may choose to renew their domains with other registrars or their registrants may choose not to renew and pay for renewal of their domains. This may reduce our resellers’ number of domain name registration customers which in turn would drive up their customer acquisition costs and harm our operating results. If resellers decide, for any reason, not to renew their registrations through us, it may in turn reduce the market to which our resellers could market our other higher-margin services, thereby further impacting our revenue and profitability and harming our operating results.

We believe that companies operating on the Internet are facing a period of consolidation. In addition, some of our resellers may decide to seek ICANN accreditation. Both of these situations could reduce the number of our active resellers, in which case our revenues may suffer.

If any of our competitors merge with one another, they will present a stronger combined force in the market and may attract the business of both existing and prospective resellers. Resellers may opt to build their own technical systems and seek ICANN accreditation in order that they may process domain applications themselves. If a number of our customers decide to pursue this option, our sales will decrease.

Our failure to secure agreements with country code registries or our subsequent failure to comply with the regulations of the country code registries could cause customers to seek a registrar that offers these services.

The country code top-level domain, or ccTLD, registries require registrars to comply with specific regulations. Many of these regulations vary from ccTLD to ccTLD. If we fail to comply with the regulations imposed by ccTLD registries, these registries will likely prohibit us from registering or continuing to register domains in their ccTLD. Any failure on our part to offer domain registrations in a significant number of ccTLDs or in a popular ccTLD would cause us to lose a competitive advantage and could cause resellers to elect to take their business to a registrar that does offer these services.

Our standard agreements may not be enforceable, which could subject us to liability.

We operate on a global basis and all of our resellers must execute our standard agreements that govern the terms of the services we provide to our customers. These agreements contain provisions intended to limit our potential liability arising from the provision of services to our resellers and their customers, including liability resulting from our failure to register or maintain domains properly, from downtime or poor performance with respect to our Internet services, or for insecure or fraudulent transactions pursuant to which we have issued SSL certificates. As most of our customers purchase our services online, execution of our agreements by resellers occurs electronically or, in the case of our terms of use, is deemed to occur because of a user’s continued use of the website following notice of those terms. We believe that our reliance on these agreements is consistent with the practices in our industry, but if a domestic, foreign or international court were to find that either one of these methods of execution is invalid or that key provisions of our services agreements are unenforceable, we could be subject to liability that has a material adverse effect on our business or we could be required to change our business practices in a way that increases our cost of doing business.

Regulation could reduce the value of Internet domain names or negatively impact the Internet domain acquisition process, which could significantly impair the value attributable to our acquisitions of Internet domain names.

The acquisition of expiring domain names for parked page commercialization, the sale of names or acquisition of names for other uses involves the registration of thousands of Internet domain names, both in the United States and internationally. We have and intend to continue to acquire previously-owned Internet domain names that have expired and have, following the period of permitted reclamation by their prior owners, been made available for sale. The acquisition of Internet domain names generally is governed by federal or international regulatory bodies. The regulation of Internet domain names in the United States and in foreign countries is subject to change. Regulatory bodies could establish additional requirements for previously-owned Internet domain names or modify the requirements for holding Internet domain names. As a result, we might not acquire or maintain names that contribute to our financial results in the same manner as we currently do. Because certain Internet domain names are important assets, a failure to acquire or maintain such Internet domain names could adversely affect our financial results and our growth. Any impairment in the value of these important assets could cause our stock price to decline.

We have presence in the hosted messaging and email market, which is a volatile business.

Factors that are likely to contribute to fluctuations in our operating results from provisioning hosted email services include:

In order to succeed in the hosted email business, our email product must remain competitive. We believe that some of the competitive factors affecting the market for hosted email services include:

We believe competition will continue to be strong and further increase as our market attracts new competition, current competitors aggressively pursue customers, increase the sophistication of their offerings and as new participants enter the market. Many of our current and potential competitors have longer operating histories, larger customer bases, greater brand recognition in the business and greater financial, marketing and other resources than we do. Any delay in our development and delivery of new services or enhancement of existing services would allow our competitors additional time to improve their product offerings and provide time for new competition to develop and market messaging services. Increased competition could result in pricing pressures, reduced operating margins and loss of market share, any of which could cause our financial results to decline.

If we are unable to maintain our relationships with our customers our revenue may decline.

Our network of resellers is our principal source for distributing services. We also rely on our resellers to market, promote and sell our services. Our ability to increase revenues in the future will depend significantly on our ability to maintain our reseller network, to sell more services through existing resellers and to develop our relationships with existing resellers by providing customer and sales support and additional products. Resellers have no obligations to distribute our services and may stop doing so at any time. If we are not able to maintain our relationships with resellers, our ability to distribute our services will be harmed, and our revenue may decline.

Disputes over registration of domain names, the activities of our reseller’s customers or the content of their websites could subject us to liability and could negatively affect the public’s perception of our corporate image.

As a registrar of domain names services, we may be subject to potential liability for illegal activities by our resellers’ customers on their websites. We provide an automated service that enables users to register domain names. We do not monitor or review, nor does our accreditation agreement with ICANN require that we monitor or review, the appropriateness of the domain names we register for our customers or the content of their websites, and we have no control over the activities in which these customers engage. While we have policies in place to terminate domain names or to take other action if presented with evidence of illegal conduct, customers could nonetheless engage in prohibited activities without our knowledge.

Several bodies of law may be deemed to apply to us with respect to various customer activities. Because we operate in a relatively new and rapidly evolving industry, and since our industry is characterized by rapid changes in technology and in new and growing illegal activity, these bodies of laws are constantly evolving. Some of the laws that apply to us with respect to certain customer activities include the following:

Although established statutory law and case law in these areas to date generally have shielded us from liability for customer activities, court rulings in pending or future litigation may serve to narrow the scope of protection afforded us under these laws. In addition, laws governing these activities are unsettled in many international jurisdictions, or may prove difficult or impossible for us to comply with in some international jurisdictions. Also, notwithstanding the exculpatory language of these bodies of law, we may be embroiled in complaints and lawsuits which, even if ultimately resolved in our favor, add cost to our doing business and may divert management’s time and attention. Finally, other existing bodies of law, including the criminal laws of various states, may be deemed to apply or new statutes or regulations may be adopted in the future, any of which could expose us to further liability and increase our costs of doing business.

Domain name registrars also face potential tort law liability for their role in wrongful transfers of domain names. The safeguards and procedures we have adopted may not be successful in insulating us against liability from such claims in the future. In addition, we face potential liability for other forms of “domain name hijacking,” including misappropriation by third parties of our network of customer domain names and attempts by third parties to operate websites on these domain names or to extort the customer whose domain name and website were misappropriated. Furthermore, our risk of incurring liability for a security breach on a customer website would increase if the security breach were to occur following our sale to a customer of an SSL certificate that proved ineffectual in preventing it. Finally, we are exposed to potential liability as a result of our private domain name registration service, wherein we become the domain name registrant, on a proxy basis, on behalf of our customers. While we have a policy of providing the underlying Whois information and reserve the right to cancel privacy services on domain names giving rise to domain name disputes including when we receive reasonable evidence of an actionable harm, the safeguards we have in place may not be sufficient to avoid liability in the future, which could increase our costs of doing business.

The international nature of our business exposes us to certain business risks that could limit the effectiveness of our growth strategy and cause our results of operations to suffer.

Expansion into international markets is an element of our growth strategy. Introducing and marketing our services internationally, developing direct and indirect international sales and support channels and managing foreign personnel and operations will require significant management attention and financial resources. We face a number of risks associated with expanding our business internationally that could negatively impact our results of operations, including:

We may not succeed in our efforts to expand our international presence as a result of the factors described above or other factors that may have an adverse impact on our overall financial condition and results of operations.

We currently license many third party technologies and may need to license further technologies which could delay and increase the cost of product and service developments.

We currently license certain technologies from third parties and incorporate them into certain of our services including email, anti-spam and anti-virus. The Internet services market is evolving and we may need to license additional technologies to remain competitive. We may not be able to license these technologies on commercially reasonable terms or at all. To the extent we cannot license necessary solutions, we may have to devote our resources to development of such technologies, which could delay and increase the cost of product and service developments overall.

In addition, we may fail to successfully integrate licensed technology into our services. These third party licenses may expose us to increased risks, including risks related to the integration of new technology and potential intellectual property infringement claims. In addition, an inability to obtain needed licenses could delay product and service development until equivalent technology can be identified, licensed and integrated. Any delays in services or integration problems could hinder our ability to attract and retain customers and cause our business and operating results to suffer.

Our advertising revenues may be subject to fluctuations.

We believe that Internet advertising spending, as in traditional media, fluctuates significantly with economic cycles and during any calendar year, with spending being weighted towards the end of the year to reflect trends in the retail industry. Our advertisers can generally terminate their contracts with us at any time. Advertising spending is particularly sensitive to changes in general economic conditions and typically decreases when economic conditions are not favorable. A decrease in demand for Internet advertising could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We may acquire companies or make investments in, or enter into licensing arrangements with, other companies with technologies that are complementary to our business and these acquisitions or arrangements could disrupt our business, cause us to require additional financing and dilute your holdings in our company.

We may acquire companies, assets or the rights to technologies in the future in order to develop new services or enhance existing services, to enhance our operating infrastructure, to fund expansion, to respond to competitive pressures or to acquire complementary businesses. Entering into these types of arrangements entails many risks, any of which could materially harm our business, including:

In addition, absent sufficient cash flows from operations, we may need to engage in equity or debt financings to secure additional funds to meet our operating and capital needs. We may not be able to secure additional debt or equity financing on favorable terms, or at all, at the time when we need that funding. In addition, even though we may have sufficient cash flow, we may still elect to sell additional equity or debt securities or obtain credit facilities for other reasons. If we raise additional funds through further issuances of equity or convertible debt securities, our existing shareholders could suffer significant dilution in their percentage ownership of our company, and any new equity securities we issue could have rights, preferences and privileges senior to those of holders of our common stock. Any debt financing secured by us in the future could involve restrictive covenants relating to our capital raising activities and other financial and operational matters, which might make it more difficult for us to obtain additional capital, to pay dividends and to pursue business opportunities, including potential acquisitions. In addition, if we decide to raise funds through debt or convertible debt financings, we may be unable to meet our interest or principal payments.

Any of the foregoing or other factors could harm our ability to achieve anticipated levels of profitability from acquired businesses or to realize other anticipated benefits of acquisitions. We may not be able to identify or consummate any future acquisitions on favorable terms, or at all. If we do effect an acquisition, it is possible that the financial markets or investors will view the acquisition negatively. Even if we successfully complete an acquisition, it could adversely affect our business.

Our corporate culture has contributed to our success, and if we cannot maintain this culture as we grow, we could lose the innovation, creativity and teamwork fostered by our culture, and our business may be harmed.

We believe that a critical contributor to our success has been our corporate culture, which we believe fosters innovation, creativity and teamwork. As our organization grows and we are required to implement more complex organizational management structures, we may find it increasingly difficult to maintain the beneficial aspects of our corporate culture. This could negatively impact our future success.

Our business depends on a strong brand. If we are not able to maintain and enhance our brand, our ability to expand our customer base will be impaired and our business and operating results will be harmed.

In recognition of the evolving nature of the internet services market and to make it easier to clearly differentiate each service we offer from our competitors, we enhanced our branding by focusing our service offerings under four distinct brands namely “OpenSRS”, “YummyNames”, “Hover” and “Ting”. We also believe that maintaining and enhancing the “Tucows” corporate brand and our service brands is critical to expanding our customer base. We anticipate that, as our market becomes increasingly competitive, maintaining and enhancing our brands may become increasingly difficult and expensive. Maintaining and enhancing our brands will depend largely on our ability to be a technology leader providing high quality products and services, which we may not do successfully. To date, we have engaged in relatively little direct brand promotion activities. This enhances the risk that we may not successfully implement brand enhancement efforts in the future.

If we fail to protect our proprietary rights, the value of those rights could be diminished.

We rely upon copyright, trade secret and trademark law, confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements, invention assignment agreements and work-for-hire agreements to protect our proprietary technology, all of which offer only limited protection. We cannot ensure that our efforts to protect our proprietary information will be adequate to protect against infringement and misappropriation by third parties, particularly in foreign countries where laws or law enforcement practices may not protect proprietary rights as fully as in the United States of America and Canada.

We have licensed, and may in the future license, some of our trademarks and other proprietary rights to others. Third parties may also reproduce or use our intellectual property rights without seeking a license and thus benefit from our technology without paying for it. Third parties could also independently develop technology, processes or other intellectual property that are similar to or superior to those used by us. Actions by licensees, misappropriation of the intellectual property rights or independent development by others of similar or superior technology might diminish the value of our proprietary rights or damage our reputation.

The unauthorized reproduction or other misappropriation of our intellectual property rights, including copying the look, feel and functionality of our website could enable third parties to benefit from our technology without us receiving any compensation. The enforcement of our intellectual property rights may depend on our taking legal action against these infringing parties, and we cannot be sure that these actions will be successful.

Because of the global nature of the Internet, our websites can be viewed worldwide. However, we do not have intellectual property protection in every jurisdiction. Furthermore, effective trademark, service mark, copyright and trade secret protection may not be available in every country in which our services become available over the Internet. In addition, the legal standards relating to the validity, enforceability and scope of protection of intellectual property rights in Internet-related industries are uncertain and still evolving.

We may not be able to realize the intended and anticipated benefits from our acquisitions of expiring domain names, which could affect the value of these acquisitions to our business and our ability to meet our financial obligations and targets.

We may not be able to realize the intended and anticipated benefits that we currently expect from our acquisition of expiring domain names. These intended and anticipated benefits include increasing our cash flow from operations, broadening our Internet service offerings and delivering services that strengthen our reseller relationships.

Factors that could affect our ability to achieve these benefits include:

If the acquired assets are not integrated into our business as we anticipate, we may not be able to achieve the benefits of these acquired assets or realize the value paid for the asset acquisitions, which could materially harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We do not control the means by which end users access our web sites and material changes to current navigation practices or technologies or marketing practices could result in a material adverse effect on our business.

The success of our parked pages business depends in large part upon the current end user tendency to type desired destinations directly into the web browser. End users employ this practice of direct navigation to access our web sites primarily through the following methods: directly accessing our web sites by typing descriptive keywords or keyword strings into the uniform resource locator, or URL, address box of an Internet browser, accessing our web sites by clicking on bookmarked web sites and accessing our web sites indirectly through search engines and directories.

Each of these methods requires the use of a third party product or service, such as an Internet browser or search engine or directory. Internet browsers may provide alternatives to the URL address box to locate web sites, and search engines may from time to time change and establish rules regarding the indexing and optimization of web sites. Product developments and market practices for these means of access to our web sites are not within our control. We may experience a decline in traffic to our web sites if third party browser technologies or search engine methodologies and rules, including those affecting marketing efforts, are changed to our disadvantage.

If the practice of direct navigation becomes less popular either as a result of evolving technologies or user practices, our ability to generate revenue from the practice of click through advertising may suffer.

A significant amount of revenue generated from the commercialization of domain names owned by the Company is dependent on our agreements with third party providers. The monetization of these domain names is currently largely dependent on the paid listings allocated by these providers to the websites associated with our domain names. This allocation may depend on each provider’s advertiser base, internal policies and other factors and determinations that may or may not be controlled by or known to us.

We may experience unforeseen liabilities in connection with our domain name portfolio, which could negatively impact our financial results.

We currently own a portfolio of domain names that were previously owned by another third-party. In addition, we have acquired, and intend to continue to acquire, other previously owned domain names. While we have a policy against acquiring domain names that infringe on third-party intellectual property rights, including trademarks or confusingly similar business names, in some cases, these acquired names may have trademark significance that is not readily apparent to us or is not identified by us in the bulk purchasing process. As a result, we may face demands by third party trademark owners asserting infringement or dilution of their rights and seeking transfer of the domain names through the Uniform Domain Name Resolution Policy, or UDRP, adopted by ICANN or actions under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, or ACPA. We may also face actions from third-parties under national trademark or anti-competition legislation.

We review each claim or demand on its merits and we intend to transfer any such previously owned domain names acquired by us to parties that have demonstrated a valid prior right of claim. We cannot, however, guarantee that we will be able to resolve all such disputes without litigation. The potential violation of third party intellectual property rights and potential causes of action under consumer protection laws may subject us to unforeseen liabilities, including injunctions and judgments for monetary damages.

Once any infringement is detected, disputes concerning the ownership or rights to use intellectual property could be costly and time-consuming to litigate, may distract management from operating the business, and may result in us losing significant rights and our ability to operate all or a portion of our business.

Claims of infringement of intellectual property or other rights of third parties against us could result in substantial costs. Third parties may assert claims of infringement of patents or other intellectual property rights against us concerning past, current or future technologies. Content obtained from third parties and distributed over the Internet by us may result in liability for defamation, negligence, intellectual property infringement, product or service liability and dissemination of computer viruses or other disruptive problems. We may also be subject to claims from third parties asserting trademark infringement, unfair competition and violation of publicity and privacy rights relating specifically to domains. As a domain name registrar, we regularly become involved in disputes over registration of domain names. Most of these disputes arise as a result of a third party registering a domain name that is identical or similar to another party’s trademark or the name of a living person. These disputes are typically resolved through the UDRP, ICANN’s administrative process for domain name dispute resolution, or less frequently through litigation under the ACPA, or under general theories of trademark infringement or dilution. The UDRP generally does not impose liability on registrars, and the ACPA provides that registrars may not be held liable for registering or maintaining a domain name absent a showing of bad faith intent to profit or reckless disregard of a court order by the registrars. However, we may face liability if we fail to comply in a timely manner with procedural requirements under these rules. In addition, these processes typically require at least limited involvement by us, and therefore increase our cost of doing business. The volume of domain name registration disputes may increase in the future as the overall number of registered domain names increases.

These claims and any related litigation could result in significant costs of defense, liability for damages and diversion of management’s time and attention. Any claims from third parties may also result in limitations on our ability to use the intellectual property subject to these claims unless we are able to enter into agreements with the third parties making these claims. If a successful claim of infringement is brought against us and we fail to develop non-infringing technology or to license the infringed or similar technology on a timely basis, we may have to limit or discontinue the business operations which used the infringing technology.

We rely on technologies licensed from other parties. These third-party technology licenses may infringe on the proprietary rights of others and may not continue to be available on commercially reasonable terms, if at all. The loss of this technology could require us to obtain substitute technology of lower quality or performance standards or at greater cost, which could increase our costs and make our products and services less attractive to customers.

The law relating to the liability of online services companies for data and content carried on or disseminated through their networks is currently unsettled and could expose us to unforeseen liabilities.

It is possible that claims could be made against online services companies under U.S., Canadian or foreign law for defamation, negligence, copyright or trademark infringement, or other theories based on data or content disseminated through their networks, even if a user independently originated this data or content. Several private lawsuits seeking to impose liability upon Internet service companies have been filed in U.S. and foreign courts. While the United States has passed laws protecting ISPs from liability for actions by independent users in limited circumstances, this protection may not apply in any particular case at issue. Our ability to monitor, censor or otherwise restrict the types of data or content distributed through our network is limited. Failure to comply with any applicable laws or regulations in particular jurisdictions could result in fines, penalties or the suspension or termination of our services in these jurisdictions. Our insurance may not be adequate to compensate or may not cover us at all in the event we incur liability for damages due to data and content carried on or disseminated through our network. Any costs not covered by insurance that are incurred as a result of this liability or alleged liability, including any damages awarded and costs of litigation, could harm our business and prospects.

Privacy concerns relating to our technology could damage our reputation and deter current and potential users from using our services.

From time to time, concerns have been expressed about whether our services compromise the privacy of our users and others. Concerns about our practices with regard to the collection, use, disclosure or security of personal information or other privacy-related matters, even if unfounded, could damage our reputation and operating results and expose us to litigation and possible liability, including claims for unauthorized purchases with credit card information, impersonation, or fraud claims and other claims relating to the misuse of personal information and unauthorized marketing purposes. While we strive to comply with all applicable data protection laws and regulations, as well as our own privacy policies, any failure or perceived failure to comply may result in proceedings or actions against us by government entities or others, which could potentially have an adverse effect on our business.

In addition, due to the fact that our services are web based, the amount of data we store for our users on our servers (including personal information) has been increasing. Any systems failure or compromise of our security that results in the release of our users’ data could seriously limit the adoption of our services as well as harm our reputation and brand and, therefore, our business. We may also need to expend significant resources to protect against security breaches. The risk that these types of events could seriously harm our business is likely to increase as we expand the number of Internet services we offer.

A large number of legislative proposals pending before the United States Congress, various state legislative bodies and foreign governments concern data protection. In addition, the interpretation and application of data protection laws in Europe and elsewhere are still unsettled. We cannot guarantee that our current information-collection procedures and disclosure policies will be found to be in compliance with existing or future laws or regulations. If our policies and procedures are found not to be in compliance, in addition to the possibility of fines, this could result in an order requiring that we change our data practices, which could in turn have a material effect on our business. Complying with these various laws could cause us to incur substantial costs or require us to change our business practices in a manner adverse to our business.

We are participating in ICANN's new gTLD Program that was approved in June 2011, which may present us with unique operational and other risks. If we are unsuccessful in managing these risks, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.

We are still participating in ICANN’s New gTLD program to own and/or operate New gTLD strings. In March 2013, we entered into an alliance with Directi and Namecheap to jointly work together to manage the contested .online registry. In addition, as part of a series of private arrangements that were completed in July 2013, we have exchanged a majority interest in our contested .group application for a minority stake in two other contested new gTLD strings, .tech and .store. While there can be no assurance that we will be awarded any gTLDs, we intend to continue to pursue contested gTLD operator rights and in order to prevail, may incur significant additional costs to acquire such rights. When more than one party applies for a gTLD, the parties are typically required to enter into negotiations or participate in an auction to win the registry rights. We may be outbid or otherwise unsuccessful in acquiring gTLDs in these negotiations or auctions. We could also face lawsuits or other opposition to our gTLD applications or any award of gTLD operator rights.

In addition, we currently have no operating experience providing back-end registry services to existing registries or acting as an owner and operator of domain name registries for gTLD strings. Our participation in the new gTLD program may involve us in new and complex processes with respect to the application and awarding of gTLD strings by ICANN, which may require that we expend significant resources to integrate these processes into our current operations. Participation in the new program may also require us to rely upon, negotiate and collaborate with independent third parties, with whom we may not have long-term contracts. In addition, we expect to compete with other established and more experienced operators in these proposed service offerings and may not be able to compete effectively with these operators. If we are unsuccessful in managing these risks, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.

Because we are required to recognize revenue for our services over the term of the applicable customer agreement, changes in our sales may not be immediately reflected in our operating results.

We recognize revenue from our customers ratably over the respective terms of their agreements with us as required by GAAP. Typically, our domain name registration agreements have terms that range from one to ten years, and our website hosting agreements have annual or month-to-month terms. Accordingly, any increases or decreases in sales during a particular period do not translate into immediate, proportional increases or decreases in revenue during that period, and a substantial portion of the revenue that we recognize during a quarter, is derived from deferred revenue from customer agreements that we entered into during previous quarters. As a result, we may not generate net earnings despite substantial sales activity during a particular period, since we are not permitted under GAAP to recognize all of the revenue from these sales immediately, and because we are required to reflect a significant portion of our related operating expenses in full during that period. Conversely, the existence of substantial deferred revenue may prevent deteriorating sales activity from becoming immediately observable in our consolidated statement of operations.

In addition, we may not be able to adjust spending in a timely manner to compensate for any unexpected revenue shortfall, and any significant shortfall in revenue relative to planned expenditures could negatively impact our business and results of operations.

Currency fluctuations may adversely affect us.

Our revenue is primarily realized in U.S. dollars and a major portion of our operating expenses are paid in Canadian dollars. Our operating results are accordingly subject to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, which could adversely affect our future operating results. We attempt to mitigate a portion of these risks through foreign currency hedging, based on our judgment of the appropriate trade-offs among risk, opportunity and expense. We have established a hedging program to partially hedge our exposure to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations for Canadian Dollars.

We regularly review our hedging program and make adjustments as necessary based on the judgment factors discussed above. Our hedging activities may not offset more than a portion of the adverse financial impact resulting from unfavorable movement in foreign currency exchange rates, which could adversely affect our financial condition or results of operations.

If we do not maintain a low rate of credit card chargebacks, we will face the prospect of financial penalties and could lose our ability to accept credit card payments from customers, which would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

A substantial majority of our revenue originates from online credit card transactions. Under current credit card industry practices, we are liable for fraudulent and disputed credit card transactions because we do not obtain the cardholder’s signature at the time of the transaction, even though the financial institution issuing the credit card may have authorized the transaction. Under credit card association rules, penalties may be imposed at the discretion of the association. Any such potential penalties would be imposed on our credit card processor by the association. Under our contract with our processor, we are required to reimburse our processor for such penalties. Our current level of fraud protection, based on our fraudulent and disputed credit card transaction history, is within the guidelines established by the credit card associations. However, we face the risk that one or more credit card associations may, at any time, assess penalties against us or terminate our ability to accept credit card payments from customers, which would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Forecasting our tax rate is complex and subject to uncertainty.

We are subject to income and other taxes in a number of jurisdictions and our tax structure is subject to review by both domestic and foreign tax authorities. We must make significant assumptions, judgments and estimates to determine our current provision for income taxes, deferred tax assets and liabilities and any valuation allowance that may be recorded against our deferred tax assets. Although we believe that our estimates are reasonable, the ultimate determination of our tax liability is always subject to review by the applicable tax authorities. Any adverse outcome of such a review could have a negative effect on our operating results and financial condition in the period or periods for which such determination is made. Our current and future tax liabilities could be adversely affected by:

In the event we are unable to satisfy regulatory requirements relating to internal control over financial reporting, or if these internal controls are not effective, our business and financial results may suffer.

Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 requires us to evaluate the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of the end of each year, and to include a management report assessing the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting in each Annual Report on Form 10-K. Our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, does not expect that our internal control over financial reporting will prevent all errors and all fraud. A control system, no matter how well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the control system's objectives will be met. Further, the design of a control system must reflect the fact that there are resource constraints, and the benefits of controls must be considered relative to their costs. Controls can be circumvented by the individual acts of some persons, by collusion of two or more people, or by management override of the controls. Over time, controls may become inadequate because changes in conditions or deterioration in the degree of compliance with policies or procedures may occur. Implementation of new technology related to the control system may result in misstatements due to errors that are not detected and corrected during testing. Because of the inherent limitations in a cost-effective control system, misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and may not be detected.

As a result, we cannot assure you that significant deficiencies or material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting will not be identified in the future. Any failure to maintain or implement required new or improved controls, or any difficulties we encounter in their implementation, could result in significant deficiencies or material weaknesses, cause us to fail to timely meet our periodic reporting obligations, or result in material misstatements in our financial statements. Any such failure could also adversely affect the results of periodic management evaluations regarding disclosure controls and the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting required under Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the rules proclaimed after that. The existence of a material weakness could result in errors in our financial statements that could result in a restatement of financial statements, cause us to fail to timely meet our reporting obligations and cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial information, leading to a decline in our stock price, and it could make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified persons to serve on our Board of Directors or as executive officers.

Impairment of goodwill and other intangible assets would result in a decrease in earnings.

Current accounting rules require that goodwill and other intangible assets with indefinite useful lives may no longer be amortized, but instead must be tested for impairment at least annually. These rules also require that intangible assets with definite useful lives be amortized over their respective estimated useful lives to their estimated residual values, and reviewed for impairment whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying amount of an asset may not be recoverable. To the extent such evaluation indicates that the useful lives of intangible assets are different than originally estimated, the amortization period is reduced or extended and, accordingly, the quarterly amortization expense is increased or decreased. We have substantial goodwill and other intangible assets, and we would be required to record a significant charge to earnings in our financial statements during the period in which any impairment of our goodwill or intangible assets is determined. Any impairment charges or changes to the estimated amortization periods could have a material adverse effect on our financial results.

We could suffer uninsured losses.

Although we maintain general liability insurance, claims could exceed the coverage obtained or might not be covered by our insurance. While we typically obtain representations from our technology and content providers and contractual partners concerning the ownership of licensed technology and informational content and obtain indemnification to cover any breach of these representations, we still may not receive accurate representations or adequate compensation for any breach of these representations. We may have to pay a substantial amount of money for claims that are not covered by insurance or indemnification or for claims where the existing scope or adequacy of insurance or indemnification is disputed or insufficient.

The pace of recovery of U.S. and global economies, political and economic conditions, and the debt crisis in the United States and other countries may adversely affect our revenue and results of operations and stock price.

The U.S. and other global economies continue to experience slow recovery from the recent recession that affected the economy as a whole, resulting in continued issues with the pace of economic growth, loss of consumer confidence and uncertainty about economic stability, and increased unemployment. U.S. and foreign credit and financial markets continue to experience instability, resulting in increased volatility in the stock market and reduced availability of credit. The U.S. continues to face budgetary issues and constraints which may result in a failure to raise the "debt ceiling" and austerity measures such as automatic sequesters, cuts in government spending and programs, increased taxes, and other related actions or inactions by the U.S. government. Other countries and economies continue to experience adverse effects of sovereign debt crises and related austerity measures. These issues may cause a cascading effect impacting other countries and economies. Our services may be considered discretionary on the part of many of our current and potential customers and be dependent upon levels of consumer spending. As a result, resellers and consumers considering whether to purchase our services may be influenced by macroeconomic factors that affect consumer spending such as unemployment, continuing increases in fuel costs, conditions in the residential real estate and mortgage markets and access to credit.

To the extent conditions in the economy remain uncertain or deteriorate, our business could be impacted as customers choose to leave our services, to reduce their service level or to stop purchasing our services. In addition, our efforts to attract new customers may be adversely affected. The current economic conditions may also adversely impact our key vendors. In uncertain and adverse economic conditions, decreased consumer spending is likely to result in a variety of negative effects such as reduction in revenues, increased costs, lower gross margin percentages, increased allowances for doubtful accounts and write-offs of accounts receivable, and recognition of impairments of assets, including goodwill and other intangible assets. Uncertainty and adverse economic conditions may also lead to a decreased ability to collect payment for our services due primarily to a decline in the ability of our business customers to use or access credit, including through credit cards, which is how most of our customers pay for our services. We also expect to continue to experience volatility in foreign exchange rates, which could negatively impact the amount of expenses we incur and the net assets we record in future periods. If any of the above risks are realized, we may experience a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our quarterly and annual operating results may fluctuate and our future revenues and profitability are uncertain.

Our quarterly and annual operating results may fluctuate significantly in the future as a result of a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control. Our quarterly and annual operating results may be adversely affected by a wide variety of factors, including:

Our operating expenses may increase. We base our operating expense budgets on expected revenue trends that are more difficult to predict in periods of economic uncertainty. We intend to continue our efforts to control discretionary spending; however, we will continue to selectively incur expenditures in areas that we believe will strengthen our position in the marketplace. If we do not meet revenue goals, we may not be able to meet reduced operating expense levels and our operating results will suffer. It is possible that in one or more future quarters, our operating results may be below our expectations and the expectations of public market analysts and investors. In that event, the price of our common stock may fall.

Ting has a short operating history which may not be indicative of our future performance and, if our revenue and earnings growth are not sustainable, we may not be able to generate the earnings necessary to fund our operations or continue to grow our business.

We launched Ting nationally in February 2012 and had no revenues before that time. Consequently, Ting has a limited operating and financial history upon which to evaluate its business model, financial performance and ability to succeed in the future. You should consider its prospects in light of the risks it may encounter, including risks and expenses faced by a new business competing in rapidly evolving and highly competitive markets. Ting cannot be certain that its Mobile Virtual Network Operator (“MVNO”) business model or any specific products or services will be profitable or competitive in the long-term against larger, facilities-based wireless providers or other MVNOs. Ting also cannot predict whether its MVNO model will allow it to offer the wireless services that customers may demand in the future. If Ting is unable to achieve sufficient revenues and earnings from operations, its financial results will be adversely affected and it may not have sufficient cash to fund its current operations or sustain its continued growth.

Ting’s service offerings may not be successful in the long term.

Ting services may not prove to be successful or profitable in the long term. Ting’s long-term success is dependent upon its sustained ability to generate sufficient revenue from its subscribers based on their use of its services and its ability to respond to churn by adding new customers. If Ting is unable to sustain or increase the revenue that it generates from its existing customers or obtain new customers to replace churned customers, its operational performance and financial results may be adversely affected.

Ting may face competitive pressure to reduce prices for our products and services, which may adversely affect our profitability and other financial results. 

As competition in the U.S. wireless communications industry has increased, providers have lowered prices or increased the number of minutes available under monthly service plans to attract or retain customers. To remain competitive with existing and future competitors, we may be compelled to offer greater subsidies for our handsets, reduce the prices for our services or increase the minutes, messages and/or data units that we offer under our postpaid monthly plans. Any subsidies or price reductions that we offer in order to remain competitive may reduce our margins and revenues, and may adversely affect our profitability and cash flows. Lower handset prices may also make our services more accessible to new, lower-value customers with less disposable income available to spend on our services. In addition, as handset prices decline and handsets become more disposable, customers without long-term contracts may change their wireless providers more frequently, thereby increasing our churn and resulting in higher acquisition costs to replace those customers. A shift to lower value or less loyal customers could have an adverse impact on our results of operations and cash flows. Those who receive inexpensive handsets as gifts and are not interested in using our service may fail to return them. As a result, we could lose our investment in these customers and handsets.

Competition in the wireless industry could adversely affect Ting’s revenues and profitability.

The wireless communications market is extremely competitive, and competition for customers is increasing. We compete with (1) facilities-based wireless communications providers and their prepaid affiliates or brands, including Sprint; and (2) other MVNOs.

Most of our competitors have substantially greater financial, technical, personnel and marketing resources and a larger market share than we do, and we may not be able to compete successfully against them or other wireless communications providers. Due to their size and bargaining power, our larger competitors obtain discounts for facilities, equipment, handsets, content, and services, potentially placing us at a competitive disadvantage. As consolidation in the industry creates even larger competitors, our competitors’ purchasing advantages may increase further, hampering our efforts to attract and retain customers. Certain of our competitors may also use their ownership of local wireline telecommunications facilities to introduce service features and calling plans, such as free wireless-to-landline calls, that we are unable to offer at similar cost. Their larger wireless customer bases may make discounted or free in-network calling (that we do not offer currently) more attractive than any similar service that we may offer. This may adversely affect our ability to compete against these competitors in the longer term.

Other prospective entrants in the wireless communications industry, such as cable operators, now offer bundled local, long distance, high-speed data, and television and video services. The ability of these providers to bundle telecommunications, Internet, and video with wireless services, as well as their financial strength and economies of scale, may enable them to offer wireless services at prices that are lower than the prices at which we can offer comparable services. If we cannot compete effectively with these service providers, our revenues, profits, cash flows and growth may be adversely affected.

The blurring of the traditional dividing lines among long distance, local, wireless, video and Internet services contributes to increased competition for Ting services. 

The traditional dividing lines among long distance, local, wireless, video and Internet services are increasingly becoming blurred. In addition, the dividing lines between voice and data services are also becoming blurred. Through mergers, joint ventures and various service expansion strategies, major providers are striving to provide integrated services in many of the markets we serve. This trend is also reflected in changes in the regulatory environment that have encouraged competition and the offering of integrated services. We expect competition to continue to intensify as a result of the entrance of new competitors or the expansion of services offered by existing competitors, and the rapid development of new technologies, products and services. We cannot predict which of many possible future technologies, products, or services will be important to maintain our competitive position or what expenditures we will be required to make in order to develop and provide these technologies, products or services. To the extent we do not keep pace with technological advances or fail to timely respond to changes in the competitive environment affecting our industry, we could lose market share or experience a decline in revenue, cash flows and net income. As a result of the financial strength and benefits of scale enjoyed by some of our competitors, they may be able to offer services at lower prices than we can, thereby adversely affecting our revenues, growth and profitability.

Ting employs a postpaid business model which exposes us to increased credit risk. 

Ting offers its wireless services on a postpaid basis. The success of its postpaid offerings depends on its ability to manage its credit risk while attracting new customers with profitable usage patterns. Ting has a short operating history and there can be no assurance that it will be able to manage its credit risk or generate sufficient revenue to cover its postpaid-related expenses, including losses arising from its customers’ failure to make payments when due. Ting manages credit risk exposure using techniques that are designed to set terms and limits for the credit risk it accepts. The techniques it uses may not accurately predict future defaults due to, among other things, inaccurate assumptions or fraud. Ting’s ability to manage credit risk may also be adversely affected by legal or regulatory changes, competitors’ actions, consumer behavior, and inadequate collections staffing or techniques. While Ting continually seeks to improve its assumptions and controls, its failure to manage its credit risks appropriately may materially adversely affect its profitability and ability to grow.

Ting may be limited in its ability to grow its business and customer base unless it can continue to obtain network capacity at favorable rates and meet the growing demands on its business systems and processes. 

To further expand our MVNO business, we must continue to obtain wireless network capacity at favorable rates and terms, provide adequate customer service and acquire and market a sufficient quantity and mix of handsets and related accessories. Our operating performance and ability to attract new customers may be adversely affected if we are unable to meet the increasing demands for our services in a timely and efficient manner, while adequately addressing the growing demands on our customer service, billing, and other back- office functions. Any change in our ability, or the ability of third parties with whom we contract, to provide these services also could adversely affect our operations and financial performance.

As an MVNO, Ting is dependent on Sprint for its wireless network and any disruptions to such network may adversely affect its business and financial results. 

We are dependent on Sprint’s physical network. As an MVNO, we do not own spectrum or own or operate a physical network. Sprint is our exclusive wireless network provider. To be successful, we will need to continue to provide our customers with reliable service over the nationwide Sprint wireless communication network. We rely on Sprint and its third-party affiliates to maintain their wireless facilities and government authorizations and to comply with government policies and regulations. If Sprint or its third-party affiliates fail to do so, we may incur substantial losses. Delays or failure to add network capacity, or increased costs of adding capacity or operating the network, could limit our ability to increase our customer base, limit our ability to increase our revenues, or cause a deterioration of our operating margin. Some of the risks related to the nationwide Sprint wireless communication network and infrastructure include: major equipment failures, breaches of network or information technology security that affect Sprint’s wireless networks, including transport facilities, communications switches, routers, microwave links, cell sites or other equipment or third-party owned local and long-distance networks on which we rely, power surges or outages, software defects and disruptions beyond Sprint’s control, such as natural disasters and acts of terrorism, among others. The Master Services Agreement “MSA” with Sprint does not contain any contractual indemnification provisions relating to network outages or other disruptions. Any impact on the nationwide Sprint wireless communication network could disrupt Ting’s operations, require significant resources, result in a loss of subscribers or impair our ability to attract new subscribers, which in turn could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We are dependent on technology used by Sprint. Wireless communications technology is evolving rapidly. A significant change in current wireless network technologies or the emergence of alternative technologies could reduce significantly our ability to offer a full range of data services, as compared to our competitors. If Sprint fails to keep up with these changes, we may lose customers or may not be able to attract new customers.

If the Sprint Master Services Agreement is terminated, we may be unable to obtain the wireless services necessary to operate our business. The initial term for our Master Services Agreement with Sprint expires in 2016. After the initial term expires, the Agreement will renew for successive 1-year terms until either party provides the other party 120 days advance notice of its intention not to renew. Sprint, however, may terminate the Master Services Agreement prior to the expiration of its term due to various reasons specified in the Master Services Agreement, including:

In case of either the expiration or termination of the Sprint Master Services Agreement, we may be unable to reach a further agreement with Sprint and its third-party affiliates or with an alternate wireless communications provider to obtain the wireless services necessary to operate our business. In addition, transition to an alternative provider is limited to a provider with a CDMA network as our handsets are not capable of operating on all networks. Such a transition could be time-consuming and costly and we could lose a substantial number of customers during the transition period.

Our dependence on Sprint is not limited to our use of the nationwide Sprint network. We rely on Sprint and its third-party affiliates for other critical operational matters, including:

Ting competes with Sprint’s products.

We compete with several of Sprint’s products. In addition, Sprint may from time to time create products or acquire interests in business that directly or indirectly compete with us. As a result, Sprint’s interests may be different from, or adverse to, ours.

Our business and financial performance could be adversely affected, directly or indirectly, by disasters, by terrorist activities or by international hostilities.

Neither the occurrence nor the potential impact of disasters, terrorist activities and international hostilities can be predicted. However, these occurrences could impact us directly as a result of damage to our facilities or by preventing us from conducting our business in the ordinary course, or indirectly as a result of their impact on our customers, suppliers or other counterparties. We could also suffer adverse consequences to the extent that disasters, terrorist activities or international hostilities affect the financial markets or the economy in general or in any particular region. For example, a significant earthquake could impact us directly by disrupting our business operations.

Our ability to mitigate the adverse consequences of such occurrences is in part dependent on the quality of our resiliency planning, and our ability, if any, to anticipate the nature of any such event that occurs. The adverse impact of disasters or terrorist activities or international hostilities also could be increased to the extent that there is a lack of preparedness on the part of national or regional emergency responders or on the part of other organizations and businesses that we deal with, particularly those that we depend upon but have no control over

Risks Related To the Internet and Our Technology

Our business could be materially harmed if the administration and operation of the Internet no longer rely upon the existing domain system.

The domain registration industry continues to develop and adapt to changing technology. This development may include changes in the administration or operation of the Internet, including the creation and institution of alternate systems for directing Internet traffic without the use of the existing domain system. Some of our competitors have begun registering domains with extensions that rely on such alternate systems. These competitors are not subject to ICANN accreditation requirements and restrictions. Other competitors have attempted to introduce naming systems that use keywords rather than traditional domains. The widespread acceptance of any alternative systems could eliminate the need to register a domain to establish an online presence and could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The law relating to the use of and ownership in intellectual property on the Internet is currently unsettled and may expose us to unforeseen liabilities.

There have been ongoing legislative developments and judicial decisions concerning trademark infringement claims, unfair competition claims and dispute resolution policies relating to the registration of domains. To help protect ourselves from liability in the face of these ongoing legal developments, we have taken the following precautions:

Despite these precautions, we cannot be assured that our indemnity and dispute resolution policies will be sufficient to protect us against claims asserted by various third parties, including claims of trademark infringement and unfair competition.

New laws or regulations concerning domains and registrars may be adopted at any time. Our responses to uncertainty in the industry or new regulations could increase our costs or prevent us from delivering our domain registration services over the Internet, which could delay growth in demand for our services and limit the growth of our revenues. New and existing laws may cover issues such as:

An example of legislation passed in response to novel intellectual property concerns created by the Internet is the ACPA enacted by the United States government in November 1999. This law seeks to curtail a practice commonly known in the domain registration industry as cybersquatting. A cybersquatter is generally defined in the ACPA as one who registers a domain that is identical or similar to another party’s trademark, or the name of another living person, with the bad faith intent to profit from use of the domain. The ACPA states that registrars may not be held liable for registration or maintenance of a domain for another person absent a showing of the registrar’s bad faith intent to profit from the use of the domain. Registrars may be held liable, however, if they do not comply promptly with procedural provisions of the ACPA. For example, if there is litigation involving a domain, the registrar is required to deposit a certificate representing the domain registration with the court. If we are held liable under the ACPA, any liability could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If Internet usage does not grow or if the Internet does not continue to expand as a medium for commerce, our business may suffer.

Our success depends upon the continued development and acceptance of the Internet as a widely used medium for commerce and communication. Rapid growth in the uses of, and interest in, the Internet is a relatively recent phenomenon and its continued growth cannot be assured. A number of factors could prevent continued growth, development and acceptance, including:

Any of these issues could slow the growth of the Internet, which could limit our growth and revenues.

We believe that part of our growth will be derived from resellers in international markets and may suffer if Internet usage does not continue to grow globally.

We believe that a major source of growth for Internet-based companies will come from individuals and businesses outside the United States where Internet access and use is currently less prevalent. A substantial number of our resellers are currently based outside the United States and we plan to grow our business in other countries. If Internet usage in these jurisdictions does not increase as anticipated, our revenues may not grow as anticipated.

We may be unable to respond to the rapid technological changes in the industry, and our attempts to respond may require significant capital expenditures.

The Internet and electronic commerce are characterized by rapid technological change. Sudden changes in user and customer requirements and preferences, the frequent introduction of new applications and services embodying new technologies and the emergence of new industry standards and practices could make our applications, services and systems obsolete. The emerging nature of applications and services in the Internet application and services industry and their rapid evolution will require that we continually improve the performance, features and reliability of our applications and services. Our success will depend, in part, on our ability:

The development of applications and services and other proprietary technology involves significant technological and business risks and requires substantial expenditures and lead-time. We may be unable to use new technologies effectively or adapt our internally developed technology and transaction- processing systems to customer requirements or emerging industry standards in a timely manner, or at all. Our internal development teams may also be unable to keep pace with new technological developments that affect the marketplace for our services. In addition, as we offer new services and functionality, we will need to ensure that any new services and functionality are well integrated with our current services, particularly as we offer an increasing number of our services as part of bundled suites. To the extent that any new services offered by us do not interoperate well with our existing services, our ability to market and sell those new services would be adversely affected and our revenue level and ability to achieve and sustain profitability might be harmed. Updating technology internally and licensing new technology from third parties may require us to incur significant additional capital expenditures.

We could experience system failures and capacity constraints which could diminish our ability to effectively provide our services and could damage our reputation and harm our operating results.

The availability of our services depends on the continuing operation of our information technology and communications systems. Any damage to or failure of our systems could result in interruptions in our service, which could reduce our revenues and profits, and damage our brand. Our systems are vulnerable to damage or interruption from earthquakes, terrorist attacks, floods, fires, power loss, telecommunications failures, computer viruses, computer denial of service attacks or other attempts to harm our systems. Some of our data centers are located in areas with a high risk of major earthquakes. Our data centers are also subject to break-ins, sabotage and intentional acts of vandalism, and to potential disruptions if the operators of these facilities have financial difficulties. Some of our systems are not fully redundant, and our disaster recovery planning cannot account for all eventualities. The occurrence of a natural disaster, a decision to close a facility without adequate notice or other unanticipated problems at our data centers could result in lengthy interruptions in our service.

Our systems face security risks, and any compromise of the security of these systems could result in liability for damages and in lost customers.

Our security systems may be vulnerable to unauthorized access by hackers or others, computer viruses and other disruptive problems. Someone who is able to circumvent security measures could misappropriate customer or proprietary information or cause interruptions in Internet operations. Internet and online resellers have in the past experienced, and may in the future experience, interruptions in service because of the accidental or intentional actions of Internet users, current and former employees or others.

We may need to expend significant capital and other resources to protect against the threat of security breaches or alleviate problems caused by breaches. Eliminating computer viruses and alleviating other security problems may require interruptions, delays or cessation of service to users accessing our websites and the web pages that deliver our content services. An information technology systems security breach may lead to a material disruption of our systems and/or the loss of business information, which may materially and adversely affect our business. Risks relating to such a security breach may include, among other things: a material adverse impact on our business and future financial results due to the theft, destruction, loss, misappropriation or release of confidential data, negative publicity resulting in reputation or brand damage with our customers, vendors or peers due to the theft, destruction, loss, misappropriation or release of confidential data,  operational or business delays resulting from the disruption of information technology systems and subsequent clean-up and mitigation activities and adverse effects on our compliance with regulatory laws and regulations. Repeated or substantial interruptions could result in the loss of customers and reduced revenues.

We may have difficulty scaling and adapting our existing architecture to accommodate increased traffic and technology advances or changing business requirements, which could lead to the loss of customers and cause us to incur additional expenses.

To be successful, our network infrastructure must perform well and be reliable. The greater the user traffic and the greater the complexity of our services, the more computing power we will need. We have spent and expect to continue to spend substantial amounts on the purchase of new equipment to upgrade our technology and network infrastructure to enable it to handle increased traffic. This expansion is expensive and complex and could result in inefficiencies or operational failures. If we do not expand successfully, or if we experience inefficiencies and operational failures, the quality of our services and our customers’ experience could decline. This could damage our reputation and lead us to lose current and potential customers. Cost increases, loss of traffic or failure to accommodate new technologies or changing business requirements could harm our operating results and financial condition.

We rely on bandwidth providers, data centers and other vendors in providing services to our customers, and any failure or interruption in the services provided by these third parties could harm our ability to operate our business and damage our reputation.

We rely on vendors, including data center and bandwidth providers in providing services to our customers. Any disruption in the network access or co-location services provided by these providers or any failure of these providers to handle current or increased volumes of use could significantly harm our business. Any financial or other difficulties our providers face may also have negative effects on our business. We exercise little control over these vendors, which increases our vulnerability to problems with the services they provide. We license technology and related databases to facilitate certain aspects of our data center and connectivity operations, including Internet traffic management services. We have experienced and expect to continue to experience interruptions and delays in service and availability for such elements. Any errors, failures, interruptions or delays in connection with these technologies and information services could harm our relationship with customers, adversely affect our brand and expose us to liabilities.

New tax treatment of companies engaged in Internet commerce may adversely affect the demand for our marketing services and our financial results.

Due to the global nature of the Internet, it is possible that, although our services and the Internet transmissions related to them typically originate in Virginia, Toronto and Germany, governments of other states or foreign countries might attempt to regulate our transmissions or levy sales, income or other taxes relating to our activities. Tax authorities at the international, federal, state and local levels are currently reviewing the appropriate treatment of companies engaged in Internet commerce. New or revised international, federal, state or local tax regulations may subject us or our customers to additional sales, income and other taxes. We cannot predict the effect of current attempts to impose sales, income or other taxes on commerce over the Internet on Tucows or on our customers. New or revised taxes and, in particular, sales taxes, would likely increase the cost of doing business online and decrease the attractiveness of advertising and selling goods and services over the Internet. New taxes could also create significant increases in internal costs necessary to capture data, and collect and remit taxes. Any of these events could have an adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

We may be accused of intellectual property infringement of the technology we have employed to support both our back end platform and the products and services we offer to and through our resellers and may be sued for damages caused by actual use of the platforms or products and services and we may be required to pay substantial damage awards.

We seek to ensure that we have licensed or otherwise secured the necessary rights to use and offer for use all intellectual property relating to our platforms and the services we offer resellers through the platforms. Despite our efforts, we may be sued by third parties claiming rights in and to the technology we employ or by third parties who claim to have suffered as a result of any use, or inability to use, the platforms, products and services. If we are sued, defense of any such claims may require the resources of both our time and money. If a third-party is successful in its assertions, we may be required to pay damages that may have a material impact on our financial resources.

Ting may lose customers if it fails to keep up with rapid technological change occurring in the wireless industry. 

The wireless communications industry is experiencing significant technological change, including ongoing improvements in the capacity and quality of digital technology, the development and commercial acceptance of wireless broadband data services, shorter development cycles for new products and enhancements, and changes in consumer requirements and preferences. These changes may cause uncertainty about future demand for our wireless services and may affect the prices that we will be able to charge for these services. Rapid changes in technology, moreover, may lead to the development of wireless communications services or alternative services that consumers prefer over our services. Our operational performance and financial results may be adversely affected if we are unable to deploy future technologies or services on a timely basis or at an acceptable cost.

We have entered into agreements with unrelated parties for certain business operations for Ting. Any difficulties experienced by us in these arrangements could result in additional expense, loss of subscribers and revenue, interruption of our services or a delay in the roll-out of new technology. 

We have entered into agreements with unrelated parties for the day-to-day execution of services, the development and maintenance of certain systems necessary for the operation of our business, and for network equipment, handsets, devices, and other equipment. We expect our dependence on key suppliers to continue as more advanced technologies are developed.

In addition, our ability to subsidize handsets is limited because we do not require long-term contracts that may produce a more stable revenue stream.

Ting’s reputation and business may be harmed and it may be subject to legal claims if there is loss, disclosure or misappropriation of or access to our subscribers' or our own information or other breaches of our information security.

We make extensive use of online services and centralized data processing, including through third-party service providers. The secure maintenance and transmission of customer information is an important element of our operations. Our information technology and other systems that maintain and transmit customer information, including location or personal information, or those of service providers, may be compromised by a malicious third-party penetration of our network security, or that of a third-party service provider, or impacted by advertent or inadvertent actions or inactions by our employees, or those of a third-party service provider. Cyber-attacks, which include the use of malware, computer viruses and other means for disruption or unauthorized access, have increased in frequency, scope and potential harm in recent years. While, to date, we have not been subject to cyber-attacks or other cyber incidents which, individually or in the aggregate, have been material to our operations or financial condition, the preventive actions we take to reduce the risk of cyber incidents and protect our information technology and networks may be insufficient to repel a major cyber-attack in the future. As a result, our subscribers’ information may be lost, disclosed, accessed, used, corrupted, destroyed or taken without the subscribers’ consent.

In addition, we and third-party service providers process and maintain our proprietary business information and data related to our business-to-business customers or suppliers. Our information technology and other systems that maintain and transmit this information, or those of service providers, may also be compromised by a malicious third-party penetration of our network security or that of a third-party service provider, or impacted by intentional or inadvertent actions or inactions by our employees or those of a third-party service provider. We also purchase equipment from third parties that could contain software defects, Trojan horses, malware, or other means by which third parties could access our network or the information stored or transmitted on such networks or equipment. As a result, our business information, or subscriber or supplier data may be lost, disclosed, accessed, used, corrupted, destroyed or taken without consent.

Any major compromise of our data or network security, failure to prevent or mitigate the loss of our services or customer information and delays in detecting any such compromise or loss could disrupt our operations, impact our reputation and subscribers' willingness to purchase our service and subject us to additional costs and liabilities, including litigation, which could be material.

Governmental and Regulatory Risks

Governmental and regulatory policies or claims concerning the domain registration system, and industry reactions to those policies or claims, may cause instability in the industry and disrupt our business.

ICANN Oversight of Domain Name Registration System

ICANN is a private sector, not-for-profit corporation formed in 1998 by the U.S. Department of Commerce for the express purposes of overseeing a number of Internet related tasks previously performed directly on behalf of the U.S. government, including managing the domain name registration system. ICANN has been subject to strict scrutiny by the public and by the U.S. and other governments around the world with many of those governments becoming increasingly interested in Internet governance. For example, the U.S. Congress has held hearings to evaluate ICANN's selection process for new TLDs. In addition, ICANN faces significant questions regarding efficacy as a private sector entity. ICANN may continue to evolve both its long-term structure and mission to address perceived shortcomings such as a lack of accountability to the public and a failure to maintain a diverse representation of interests on its board of directors. We continue to face the risks that:

If any of these events occur, they could create instability in the domain registration system. These events could also disrupt or suspend portions of our domain registration solution, which would result in reduced revenue.

Governmental Regulation Affecting the Internet

To date, government regulations have not materially restricted use of the Internet in most parts of the world. The legal and regulatory environment pertaining to the Internet, however, is uncertain and may change. New laws may be passed, existing but previously inapplicable laws may be deemed to apply to the Internet, or existing legal safe harbors may be narrowed, both by U.S. federal or state governments and by governments of foreign jurisdictions. These changes could affect:

The adoption of any new laws or regulations, or the application or interpretation of existing laws or regulations to the Internet, could hinder growth in use of the Internet and online services generally, and decrease acceptance of the Internet and online services as a means of communications, commerce and advertising. In addition, such changes in laws could increase our costs of doing business, subject our business to increased liability or prevent us from delivering our services over the Internet, thereby harming our business and results of operations.

We may be subject to government regulation that may be costly and may interfere with our ability to conduct business.

Although transmission of our websites primarily originates in Canada and the United States, the Internet is global in nature. Governments of foreign countries might try to regulate our transmissions or prosecute us for violations of their laws. Because of the increasing popularity and use of the Internet, federal, state and foreign governments may adopt laws or regulations in the future concerning commercial online services and the Internet, with respect to:

Laws and regulations directly applicable to online commerce or Internet communications are becoming more prevalent. Laws and regulations such as those listed above or others, if enacted, could expose us to substantial liability and increase our costs of compliance and doing business.

Sprint’s failure to obtain the proper licenses and governmental approvals from regulatory authorities would cause Ting to be unable to successfully operate its business.

The FCC licenses currently held by Sprint and its third-party affiliates to provide wireless services are subject to renewal and revocation. There is no guarantee that Sprint’s or its third-party affiliates’ wireless licenses will be renewed. The FCC requires all wireless licensees to meet certain requirements, including so-called “build-out” requirements, to retain their licenses. Sprint Nextel’s or its third-party affiliates’ failure to comply with certain FCC requirements in a given license area could result in the revocation of Sprint Nextel’s or such third-party affiliates’ wireless license for that geographic area.

Government regulation could adversely affect Ting’s prospects and results of operations; the FCC and state regulatory commissions may adopt new regulations or take other actions that could adversely affect its business prospects, future growth or results of operations.

The FCC and other federal, state and local, as well as international, governmental authorities have jurisdiction over our business and could adopt regulations or take other actions that would adversely affect our business prospects or results of operations.

The licensing, construction, operation, sale and interconnection arrangements of wireless telecommunications systems are regulated by the FCC and, depending on the jurisdiction, international, state and local regulatory agencies. In particular, the FCC imposes significant regulation on licensees of wireless spectrum with respect to how radio spectrum is used by licensees, the nature of the services that licensees may offer and how the services may be offered, and resolution of issues of interference between spectrum bands.

The FCC grants wireless licenses for terms of generally ten years that are subject to renewal and revocation. There is no guarantee that Sprint’s licenses will be renewed. Failure to comply with FCC requirements applicable to a given license could result in revocation of that license and, depending on the nature of the non-compliance, other Sprint licenses.

Various states are considering regulations over terms and conditions of service, including certain billing practices and consumer-related issues that may not be pre-empted by federal law. If imposed, these regulations could make it more difficult and expensive to implement national sales and marketing programs and could increase the costs of our wireless operations.

Risks Related to our Stock

We do not intend to declare dividends on our common stock in the immediate future.

We anticipate that in the immediate future, our earnings, if any, will be retained for use in the business and that no cash dividends will be paid on our common stock. While we may decide to declare such dividends in the future, declaration of dividends on our common stock will depend upon, among other things, future earnings, our operating and financial condition, our capital requirements, ongoing market conditions and general business conditions.

Our share price is volatile, which may make it difficult for shareholders to sell their shares of common stock when they want to, at an attractive price.

Our share price has varied recently and the price of our common stock may decrease in the future, regardless of our operating performance. Investors may be unable to resell their common stock following periods of volatility because of the market’s adverse reaction to this volatility.

The following factors may contribute to this volatility:

The stock market in general, and the market for Internet-related companies in particular, including our company, has experienced volatility. This volatility often has been unrelated to the operating performance of these companies. These broad market and industry fluctuations may cause the price of our common stock to drop, regardless of our performance.

Future sales of shares of our common stock by our existing shareholders could cause our share price to fall.

If our shareholders sell substantial amounts of common stock in the public market, the market price of the common stock could fall. The perception among investors that these sales will occur could also produce this effect.

ITEM 1B.  UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS

Not applicable.

ITEM 2.  PROPERTIES

We do not own any real property. Our principal administrative, engineering, marketing and sales office totals approximately 26,937 square feet and is located in Toronto, Ontario under a lease that expires on December 31, 2020. In addition, we also maintain offices of approximately 4,000 square feet in Starkville, Mississippi, approximately 2,900 square feet in Bonn, Germany and approximately 500 square feet in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Substantially all of our computer and communications hardware is located at our facilities or at server hosting facilities in Toronto, Ontario and Ashburn, Virginia.

ITEM 3.  LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

We are involved in various investigations, claims and lawsuits arising in the normal conduct of our business, none of which, in our opinion, will materially harm our business. We cannot assure that we will prevail in any litigation. Regardless of the outcome, any litigation may require us to incur significant litigation expense and may result in significant diversion of management attention.

ITEM 4.  MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES

Not applicable.

PART II

ITEM 5.     MARKET FOR REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES

Price Range of Common stock

On December 17, 2013, we notified the NYSE MKT LLC (the " NYSE MKT ") of our intent to withdraw the listing and registration of our common stock from the NYSE MKT, and transfer the listing of our common stock to the NASDAQ Capital Market ("NASDAQ"). Our common stock ceased trading on the NYSE MKT at the close of business on December 27, 2013, and began trading on NASDAQ on December 30, 2013 under the stock symbol "TCX". We maintained our listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol “TC”.

At a special meeting of shareholders on December 4, 2013, our shareholders approved an amendment to our Fourth Amended and Restated Articles of Incorporation to implement a reverse stock split, within a range from 1-for-3 to 1-for-6 at any time prior to January 31, 2014, with the exact ratio of the reverse stock split to be determined by our Board of Directors at its sole discretion. Subsequently, our Board of Directors approved the implementation of a reverse stock split at a ratio of 1-for-4 shares (the “Reverse Stock Split”). This Reverse Stock Split was effective on December 30, 2013 and our common stock began trading on NASDAQ on a split adjusted basis on December 31, 2013 and our authorized shares of common stock were proportionately decreased from 43,625,048 shares to 10,907,063 shares. Fractional shares were rounded up to the nearest whole share in connection with the Reverse Stock Split. The following table sets forth the range of high and low sales prices for our common stock for the periods indicated, as adjusted to reflect the Reverse Stock Split:

Our common stock was listed on the OTC Bulletin Board maintained by NASDAQ under the symbol “TCOW” through August 17, 2005. Our common stock began trading on the NYSE MKT under the symbol “TCX” on August 18, 2005 through December 27, 2013. Our common stock began trading on NASDAQ under the symbol “TCX” on December 30, 2013.

As of March 5, 2014, Tucows had 280 shareholders of record, excluding shareholders whose shares are held in nominee or “street” name by brokers.

We have not declared or paid any cash dividends on our common stock during the fiscal years ended December 31, 2013 and December 31, 2012, and we do not intend to do so in the immediate future, but we may decide to do so in the future depending on ongoing market conditions. Our ability to pay any cash dividends on our common stock, should our Board of Directors decide to do so, is also dependent on our earnings and cash requirements.

Purchases of equity securities by the issuer and affiliated purchasers

Our stock buyback program, which we initially commenced on March 1, 2013, terminated on February 28, 2014. We did not repurchase any equity securities during the fourth quarter of the year ended December 31, 2013.

ITEM 6.     SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA

Not applicable.

ITEM 7.     MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

The following discussion and analysis should be read together with the audited consolidated financial statements of Tucows Inc. (the “Company”, “we”, “us” or “our”) for the years ended December 31, 2013, 2012 and 2011 and accompanying notes set forth elsewhere in this report. All financial information is presented in U.S. dollars.

Some of the statements set forth in this section are forward-looking statements relating to our future results of operations. Our actual results may vary from the results anticipated by these statements. Please see “Information Concerning Forward-Looking Statements” on page 1.

OVERVIEW

Our mission is to provide simple useful services that help people unlock the power of the Internet. We accomplish this by reducing the complexity our customers’ experience as they acquire, deliver or use Internet services such as domain name registration, email and other Internet services.

Our primary distribution channel is a global network of more than 13,000 resellers in more than 100 countries who typically provide their customers, the end-users of the Internet, with a critical component for establishing and maintaining an online presence. Our primary focus is serving the needs of this network of resellers by providing superior services, easy-to-use interfaces, proactive and attentive customer service, reseller-oriented technology and agile design and development processes. We seek to provide superior customer service to our resellers by anticipating their business needs and technical requirements. This includes providing easy-to-use interfaces that enable resellers to quickly and easily integrate our services into their individual business processes, and offering brandable end-user interfaces that emphasize simplicity and visual appeal. We also provide “second tier” support to our resellers by email and phone in the event resellers experience issues or problems with our services. In addition, our Network Operating Center provides proactive support to our resellers by monitoring all services and network infrastructure to address deficiencies before customer services are impacted.

We believe that the underlying platforms for our services are one of the most mature, reliable and functional reseller-oriented provisioning and management platforms in our industry, and we continue to refine, evolve and improve these services for both resellers and end-users.

Our principal place of business is located in Canada. We report our financial results as two operating segment, Domain Services with three distinct service offerings – Wholesale, Retail and Portfolio and Network Access Services, which derives revenue from the sale of retail mobile phones and services to individuals and small businesses. Our chief operating decision maker regularly reviews our operating results on a consolidated basis, principally to make decisions about how we utilize our resources and to measure our consolidated operating performance. To assist us in forecasting growth and to help us monitor the effectiveness of our operational strategies, our chief operating decision maker regularly reviews revenue for each of our service offerings in order to gain more depth and understanding of the key business metrics driving our business. Accordingly, we report revenue in the following service areas:

Wholesale, primarily branded as OpenSRS, derives revenue from its Domain Service and from providing Value-Added Services. The OpenSRS Domain Service manages over 14 million domain names under the Tucows ICANN registrar accreditation and for other registrars under their own accreditations. Value-Added Services include hosted email which provides email delivery and webmail access to millions of mailboxes, Internet security services, publishing tools and reseller billing services. All of these services are made available to end-users through a network of over 13,000 web hosts, Internet service providers (“ISPs”), and other resellers around the world. In addition, we also derive revenue from the bulk sale of domain names and advertising from the OpenSRS Domain Expiry Stream and the Marketing Development Funds we receive from vendors from time-to-time to expand or maintain the market position for their services.

Retail, primarily our Hover and Ting websites, derives revenues from the sale of domain name registration, email services and mobile phone service to individuals and small businesses. Retail also includes our Personal Names Service – based on over 40,000 surname domains – that allows roughly two-thirds of Americans to purchase an email address based on their last name.

Portfolio generates advertising revenue from our domain name portfolio and from our advertising-supported website tucows.com. We also generate revenue by offering names in our domain portfolio for resale via our reseller network and other channels.

Our business model is characterized primarily by non-refundable, up-front payments, which lead to recurring revenue and positive operating cash flow.

For the years ended December 31, 2013, 2012 and 2011, we reported revenue of $130 million, $115 million and $97 million, respectively. For the years ended December 31, 2013, 2012 and 2011, our OpenSRS domain service offering accounted for 67%, 77% and 79% of our total revenue, respectively.

KEY BUSINESS METRICS

We regularly review a number of business metrics, including the following key metrics to, assist us in evaluating our business, measure the performance of our business model, identify trends impacting our business, determine resource allocations, formulate financial projections and make strategic business decisions. The following table sets forth, the key business metrics which we believe are the primary indicators of our performance for the periods presented:

OPPORTUNITIES, CHALLENGES AND RISKS

The increased competition in the market for Internet services in recent years, which we expect will continue to intensify in the short and long term, poses a material risk for us. As new registrars are introduced, existing competitors expand service offerings and competitors offer price discounts to gain market share, we face pricing pressure, which can adversely impact our revenues and profitability. To address these risks, we have focused on leveraging the scalability of our infrastructure and our ability to provide proactive and attentive customer service to aggressively compete to attract new customers and to maintain existing customers.

Our direct costs to register domain names on behalf of our customers are almost exclusively controlled by registries such as Verisign and by ICANN. Verisign provides all the registry services operations for the .com, .net, .cc, .tv and .name domain names. ICANN is a private sector, not-for-profit corporation formed to oversee a number of Internet related tasks, including domain registrations for which it collects fees. The market for wholesale registrar services is both price sensitive and competitive, particularly for large volume customers, such as large web hosting companies and owners of large portfolios of domain names. We have a relatively limited ability to increase the pricing of domain name registrations without negatively impacting our ability to maintain or grow our customer base.

We are still participating in ICANN’s New gTLD program to own minority interests and/or operate New gTLD strings. The New gTLD Program's goals include enhancing competition and consumer choice, and enabling the benefits of innovation via the introduction of a wide range of new gTLDs. In June 2012, ICANN announced that it had received over 1,900 applications through which over 1,300 new gTLDs could become available in the next few years on a rolling basis related to over 1,400 new gTLDs. As of February 26, 2014 ICANN delegated and introduced 160 of these new gTLDs into the Root Zone. We believe that the introduction of the wide range of new gTLDs, once completed, will result in an increase in the number of domains we register and related revenues commencing in 2014. In addition, while the delegation of New gTLDs could substantially change the domain name industry in unexpected ways, we believe that the New gTLD Program will provide us with new revenue opportunities commencing in 2014.

Under the terms of the New gTLD program, in April 2012 we paid the required $1.1 million application fee in support of our application for six domain strings under ICANN's new gTLD Program. A declining percentage of these evaluation fees are refundable if any application is withdrawn prior to our executing a registry agreement with ICANN. In May 2012 we withdrew two of our applications and under the terms of the New gTLD application process have received a full refund of $0.4 million against these applications.

In March 2013, we entered into an alliance with Directi and Namecheap to jointly work together to manage the contested .online registry. In May 2013, in accordance with our alliance with Directi and Namecheap, we withdrew our .online application and under the terms of the New gTLD application process have received a partial refund of $0.1 million against this application.

In addition, in a series of private arrangements that were completed in July 2013, we have negotiated agreements that have changed our interest in the remaining three applications - .group, .media and .marketing. We have withdrawn our applications for .media and .marketing and the gross amounts received for the domain related rights have been recorded as portfolio revenue in the three months ended September 30, 2013. With .group, we have exchanged a majority interest in our .group application for a minority stake in two other contested new gTLD strings, .tech and .store. As all these strings are contested, there can be no assurance that we will be part of a successful bid for any of these new gTLD strings.

While there can be no assurance that we will be awarded any gTLDs, we intend to continue to pursue contested gTLD operator rights and in order to prevail, may incur significant additional costs to acquire such rights. Any such additional costs will be capitalized and included in prepaid expenses and deposits until such time as the relevant gTLD is delegated by ICANN. Other costs incurred by the Company as part of its gTLD initiative not directly attributable to the acquisition of gTLD operator rights are expensed as incurred.

To the extent we elect to sell or dispose of any of our rights under the New gTLD Program, any gains realized on the sale of our interest will be recognized as portfolio revenue, while losses will be recognized when deemed probable. Should we be successful in acquiring any contested gTLD operator rights, any capitalized gTLD costs will be reclassified as finite lived intangible assets and amortized on a straight-line basis over their estimated useful life.

From time-to-time certain of our vendors provide us with Market Development Funds to expand or maintain the market position for their services. Any decision by these vendors to cancel or amend these programs for any reason, may result in payments in future periods not being commensurate with what we have achieved during past periods.

Sales of domain names from our domain portfolio have a negative impact on our advertising revenue as these names are no longer available for advertising purposes. In addition, the timing of larger domain names portfolio sales is unpredictable and may lead to significant quarterly and annual fluctuations in our Portfolio revenue.

Our revenue is primarily realized in U.S. dollars and a major portion of our operating expenses are paid in Canadian dollars. Fluctuations in the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the Canadian dollar may have a material effect on our business, financial condition and results from operations. In particular, we may be adversely affected by a significant weakening of the U.S. dollar against the Canadian dollar on a quarterly and an annual basis. Our policy with respect to foreign currency exposure is to manage our financial exposure to certain foreign exchange fluctuations with the objective of neutralizing some or all of the impact of foreign currency exchange movements by entering into foreign exchange forward contracts to mitigate the exchange risk on a portion of our Canadian dollar exposure. We may not always enter into such forward contracts and such contracts may not always be available and economical for us. Additionally, the forward rates established by the contracts may be less advantageous than the market rate upon settlement.

Net Revenues

Wholesale - OpenSRS Domain Service

Historically, our OpenSRS Domain Service has constituted the largest portion of our business and encompasses all of our services as an accredited registrar related to the registration, renewal, transfer and management of domain names. In addition, this service fuels other revenue categories as it often is the initial service for which a reseller will engage us, enabling us to follow on with other services and allowing us to add to our portfolio by purchasing names registered through us upon their expiration.

With the acquisition of EPAG Domainservices GmbH (“EPAG”) in August 2011, we now offer registration services for over 200 TLDs.

Our domain service revenue is principally comprised of registration fees charged to resellers in connection with new, renewed and transferred domain name registrations. The registration fee provides our resellers with access to our provisioning and management tools to enable them to register and administer domain names and access to additional services like WHOIS privacy and DNS services, enhanced domain name suggestion tools and access to our premium domain names. We earn fees in connection with each new, renewed and transferred-in registration and from providing provisioning services to resellers and registrars on a monthly basis. Domain registrations are generally purchased for terms of one to ten years, with a majority having a one-year term.

Wholesale – OpenSRS Value-Added Services

We derive revenue from our hosted email service through our global distribution network. Our hosted email service is offered on a per account, per month basis, and provides resellers with a reliable, scalable “white label” hosted email solution that can be customized to their branding and business model requirements. The hosted email service also includes spam and virus filtering on all accounts. End-users can access the hosted email service via a full-featured, multi-language AJAX-enabled web interface or through traditional desktop email clients, such as Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail, using IMAP or POP/SMTP.

We also derive revenue from other Value-Added Services primarily from provisioning SSL and other trust certificates. In addition, we derive revenue from the bulk sale of domain names and advertising from the OpenSRS Domain Expiry Stream.

Other services included in Value-Added Services include web publishing tools and fees we receive from time-to-time from vendors to expand or maintain the market position for their services. In addition, we provide billing, provisioning and customer care software solutions to ISPs through our Platypus billing software.

Retail – Hover

We derive revenues from Hover's sale of retail Internet domain name registration and email services to individuals and small businesses.

Retail - Ting

We derive revenue from Ting's sale of retail mobile phones and services to individuals and small businesses.

Portfolio

We derive revenue from our portfolio of domain names by displaying advertising on the domains and by making them available for sale or lease. When a user types one of these domain names into a web browser, they are presented with dynamically generated links that are pay-per-click advertising. Every time a user clicks on one of these links, it generates revenue for us through our partnership with third-parties who provide syndicated pay-per-click advertising (“parked page vendors”).

Our parked page vendor relationships may not continue to generate levels of revenue commensurate with what we have achieved during past periods. Our ability to generate online advertising revenue from parked page vendors depends on their advertising networks' assessment of the quality and performance characteristics of Internet traffic resulting from online advertisements rendered on their websites. We have no control over any of these quality assessments. Parked page vendors may from time to time change their existing, or establish new, methodologies and metrics for valuing the quality of Internet traffic and delivering pay-per-click advertisements. Any changes in these methodologies, metrics and advertising technology platforms could decrease the amount of revenue that we generate from online advertisements. In addition, parked page vendors may at any time change or suspend the nature of the service that they provide to online advertisers. These types of changes or suspensions would adversely impact our ability to generate revenue from pay-per-click advertising.

Portfolio names are sold through our premium domain name service, auctions or in negotiated sales. The size of our domain name portfolio varies over time, as we acquire and sell domains on a regular basis to maximize the overall value and revenue generation potential of our portfolio. In evaluating names for sale, we consider the potential foregone revenue from pay-per-click advertising, as well as other factors. The name will be offered for sale if, based on our evaluation, the name is deemed non-essential to our business and management believes that deriving proceeds from the sale is strategically more beneficial to the Company.

Portfolio names that have been acquired from third-parties or through acquisition are included as intangible assets with indefinite lives on our consolidated balance sheet.

We also generate advertising and other revenue through our ad-supported content site, tucows.com. This site primarily derive revenue from banner and text advertising. In addition, their revenue is derived from software developers who rely on us as a primary source of distribution. Software developers use our Author Resource Center to submit their products for inclusion on our site and to purchase promotional placements of their software.

Critical Accounting Policies

The following is a discussion of our critical accounting policies and methods. Critical accounting policies are defined as those that are both important to the portrayal of our financial condition and results of operations and are reflective of significant judgments and uncertainties made by management that may result in materially different results under different assumptions and conditions. Note 2 to the consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2013 (“Fiscal 2013”), includes further information on the significant accounting policies and methods used in the preparation of our consolidated financial statements.

The preparation of financial statements in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America requires us to make estimates and judgments that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses, and related disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities. On an on-going basis, we evaluate the application of these estimates, including those related to the recoverability of investments, useful lives and valuation of intangible assets, valuation of goodwill, fair value measurement of assets and liabilities, product development costs, revenue recognition and deferred revenue and accounting for income taxes. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that are believed to be reasonable under the circumstances, the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. Actual amounts could differ significantly from these estimates.

Revenue recognition policy

We earn revenues from the following services:

With respect to the sale of domain registrations and other Internet services, we earn registration fees in connection with each new, renewed and transferred-in registration and from providing provisioning services to resellers and registrars on a monthly basis. We also enter into revenue arrangements in which a reseller may purchase a combination of services (multiple element arrangements). When a standalone selling price exists for each deliverable, we allocate revenue to each deliverable based on the relative selling price of each of the deliverables. The standalone selling price is established for each deliverable by the price charged when that deliverable is sold separately by the Company which is vendor specific objective evidence (“VSOE”). For arrangements where the Company does not sell the deliverable separately, the selling price is determined based on third party evidence (“TPE”), which is the price at which a competitor or third party sells the same or similar and largely interchangeable deliverable on a standalone basis. In instances where VSOE and TPE do not exist, the Company uses an estimated selling price for the deliverable, which is the price at which a company would transact if the deliverable were sold by the vendor regularly on a standalone basis. Payments for the full term of all services are received at the time of activation of service and where appropriate are recorded as deferred revenue and are recognized as earned ratably over the term of provision of service. This accounting treatment reasonably approximates a recognition pattern that corresponds with the provision of the services during the quarters and the year.

Revenues derived from provisioning mobile phone service to individuals and small businesses through the Ting website, are recognized once services have been provided. This is based upon either usage (e.g., minutes of traffic/bytes of data processed), period of time (e.g., monthly service fees), various regulatory fees imposed on us by governmental authorities or other established fee schedules. Revenues for wireless services are billed based on the actual amount of monthly services utilized by each customer during their billing cycle on a postpaid basis. Our billing cycle for each customer is computed based on their activation date and not on our reporting period. As a result, we are required to estimate the amount of revenues earned but not billed from the end of each billing cycle to the end of each reporting period. These estimates are based on an assessment of the actual services rendered to each customer since the last billing period against our rate plans existing at that time. Adjustments affecting revenue may occur in periods subsequent to the billing period when the services were provided and are recognized as revenue during the current billing cycle. In addition, revenues associated with the sale of wireless devices and accessories to subscribers is recognized when title and risk of loss is transferred to the subscriber and shipment has occurred. Incentive marketing credits given to customers are recorded as a reduction of revenue.

Revenue from domain portfolio monetization and sales consists primarily of amounts earned for the transfer of rights to domain names and domain related rights that are currently under the Company's control. Collectability of revenues generated is subject to a high level of uncertainty; accordingly revenues are recognized only when payment is received, except where a fixed contract has been negotiated, in which case revenues are recognized once all the terms of the contract have been satisfied.

We also generate advertising and other revenue through tucows.com as well as advertising revenue from our OpenSRS expired domain names and our domain name portfolio. Advertising and other revenue is recognized ratably over the period in which it is presented. To the extent that the minimum number of post-presentation impressions we guarantee to customers is not met, we defer recognition of the corresponding revenues until the guaranteed impressions are achieved. Revenue is also generated from vendors who are seeking to expand or maintain their services market position and is recognized once all the conditions have been met.

Changes to contractual relationships in the future could impact the amounts and timing of revenue recognition.

In those cases where payment is not received at the time of sale, additional conditions for recognition of revenue apply. The conditions are (i) that the collection of sales proceeds is reasonably assured and (ii) that we have no further performance obligations. We record expected refunds, rebates and credit card charge-backs as a reduction of revenues at the time of the sale based on historical experiences and current expectations. Should these expectations not be met, adjustments will be required in future periods.

We record provisions for possible uncollectible accounts receivable and contingent liabilities which may arise in the normal course of business. The allowance for doubtful accounts is calculated by taking into account factors such as our historical collection and write-off experience, the number of days the customer is past due and the status of the customer's account with respect to whether or not the customer is continuing to receive service. The contingent liability estimates are based on management's historical experience and various other assumptions that are believed to be reasonable under the circumstances, the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the reported amounts of liabilities and expenses that are not readily apparent from other sources. Historically, credit losses have been within our expectations and the reserves we have established have been appropriate. However, we have, on occasion, experienced issues which have led to accounts receivable not being fully collected. Should these issues occur more frequently, additional provisions may be required.

Valuation of intangible assets, goodwill and long-lived assets

The excess of the fair value of purchase price over the fair values of the identifiable assets and liabilities from our acquisitions is recorded as goodwill. At December 31, 2013, we had $18.9 million in goodwill related to our acquisitions and $15.4 million in intangible assets. All related to our Domain Services segment. The goodwill recorded in relation to these acquisitions is not deductible for tax purposes. We report our financial results as two operating segments, Domain Services with three distinct service offerings, being Wholesale, Retail and Portfolio and Network Access Services which derives revenue from the sale of retail mobile phones and services to individuals and small businesses.

Finite life intangible assets, related to the acquisition of EPAG in August 2011, are being amortized on a straight-line basis over periods of two to seven years, and consist of technology, brand and customer relationships. Finite life intangible assets, related to the acquisition of Innerwise, Inc. in July 2007, are being amortized on a straight-line basis over periods of five to seven years, and consist of brand and customer relationships. Indefinite life intangible assets, acquired in the acquisition of Mailbank.com Inc. in June 2006, consist of surname domain names and direct navigation domain names.

We account for goodwill in accordance with FASB’s authoritative guidance, which requires that goodwill and certain intangible assets are not amortized, but are subject to an annual impairment test. We complete our goodwill and certain intangible assets impairment test on an annual basis, during the fourth quarter of our fiscal year, or more frequently, if changes in facts and circumstances indicate that impairment in the value of goodwill and certain intangible assets recorded on our balance sheet may exist.

With regards to property and equipment and definite life intangible assets, we continually evaluate whether events or circumstances have occurred that indicate the remaining estimated useful lives of our definite-life intangible assets may warrant revision or that the remaining balance of such assets may not be recoverable. We use an estimate of the related undiscounted cash flows over the remaining life of the asset in measuring whether the asset is recoverable. There was no impairment recorded on definite-life intangible assets and property and equipment during 2013 and 2012.

Our 2013 annual goodwill impairment analysis, which we performed for our Domain Services reporting unit as of December 31, 2013, did not result in an impairment charge.

We determined the estimated fair value for our reporting unit using the market approach that is based on the publicly traded common shares of the Company to estimate fair value. The fair value was greater than the carrying value, therefore no impairment exists and the second step was not performed. The analysis was consistent with the approach we utilized in our analysis performed in prior years.

Any changes to our key assumptions about our businesses and our prospects, or changes in market conditions, could cause the fair value of our reporting unit to fall below its carrying value, resulting in a potential impairment charge. In addition, changes in our organizational structure or how our management allocates resources and assesses performance, could result in a change in our operating segments or reporting units, requiring a reallocation and updated impairment analysis of goodwill. A goodwill or intangible asset impairment charge could have a material effect on our consolidated financial statements because of the significance of goodwill and intangible assets to our consolidated balance sheet. There was no impairment of goodwill or intangible assets as a result of the annual impairment tests completed during the fourth quarters of 2013 and 2012.

Accounting for income taxes

We are subject to income taxes in the U.S. and numerous foreign jurisdictions. Significant judgment is required in evaluating our uncertain tax positions and determining our provision for income taxes. We apply a two-step approach to recognizing and measuring uncertain tax positions. The first step is to evaluate the tax position for recognition by determining if on the weight of available evidence it is more likely than not that the position will be sustained on audit, including resolution of related appeals or litigation processes, if any. The second step is to measure the tax benefit that is more than 50% likely to be realized upon settlement.

Although we believe we have adequately reserved for our uncertain tax positions, no assurance can be given that the final tax outcome of these matters will not be different. We adjust these reserves in light of changing facts and circumstances, such as the closing of a tax audit or the refinement of an estimate based on new information that may become available. To the extent that the final tax outcome of these matters is different than the amounts recorded, such differences will impact the provision for income taxes in the period in which such determination is made.

As we account for income taxes under the asset and liability method, we recognize deferred tax assets or liabilities for the anticipated future tax effects of temporary differences between the financial statement basis and the tax basis of our assets and liabilities. We record a valuation allowance to reduce the net deferred tax assets when it is more likely than not that the benefit from the deferred tax assets will not be realized. In assessing the need for a valuation allowance, historical and future levels of income, expectations and risks associated with estimates of future taxable income and ongoing tax planning strategies are considered. In the event that it is determined that the deferred tax assets to be realized in the future would be in excess of the net recorded amount, an adjustment to the deferred tax asset valuation allowance would be recorded. This adjustment would increase income in the period that such determination was made. Likewise, should it be determined that all or part of a recorded net deferred tax asset would not be realized in the future, an adjustment to increase the deferred tax asset valuation allowance would be charged to income in the period that such determination would be made.

On a periodic basis, we evaluate the probability that our deferred tax asset balance will be recovered to assess its realizability. To the extent we believe it is more likely than not that some portion of our deferred tax assets will not be realized, we will increase the valuation allowance against the deferred tax assets. Realization of our deferred tax assets is dependent primarily upon future taxable income. Our judgments regarding future profitability may change due to future market conditions, changes in U.S. or international tax laws and other factors. These changes, if any, may require possible material adjustments to these deferred tax assets, impacting net income or net loss in the period when such determinations are made.

RESULTS OF OPERATIONS FOR THE YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2013 AS COMPARED TO THE YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2012

NET REVENUES

The following table presents our net revenues, by revenue source:

The following table presents our revenues, by revenue source, as a percentage of total revenues:

Total net revenues for Fiscal 2013 increased by $15.2 million, or 13%, to $129.9 million from $114.7 million for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2012 (“Fiscal 2012”). Deferred revenue from domain name registrations and other Internet services at December 31, 2013 decreased to $70.0 million from $71.0 million at December 31, 2012. Deferred revenue has been impacted by the transfer of a significant number of names by certain of our customers from our registrar accreditation to their own registrar accreditation, no longer registering new domain names on our platform.

No customer accounted for more than 10% of revenue during Fiscal 2013 and, at December 31, 2013, no customer accounted more than 10% of accounts receivable. Significant management judgment is required at the time of recording of revenue to assess whether the collection of the resulting receivables is reasonably assured. On an ongoing basis, we assess the ability of our customers to make required payments. Based on this assessment, we expect the carrying amount of our outstanding receivables, net of allowance for doubtful accounts, to be fully collected.

Wholesale

During Fiscal 2013, domain services revenue decreased by $0.1 million to $87.3 million when compared to Fiscal 2012, primarily the result of two customers who have acquired their own registrar accreditation no longer registering new domain names on our platform.

Value-Added Services decreased by $0.3 million to $10.3 million when compared to Fiscal 2012. This decrease was largely due to the $0.6 million decrease in revenue from sale of domain names and advertising from the OpenSRS Domain Expiry Stream which was primarily attributable to slower sales to certain third-party partners. This decrease was partially offset by increased digital certificate and email sales.

During Fiscal 2013, the number of transactions from all new, renewed and transferred-in domain name registrations that we processed decreased by 0.1 million transactions to 9.1 million when compared to Fiscal 2012 and reflects the impact of customers who have acquired their own registrar accreditation no longer registering new domain names on our platform. While we anticipate that the number of new, renewed and transferred-in domain name registrations will continue to incrementally increase in the long term, the volatility in the market could affect the growth of domain names that we manage.

As of December 31, 2013, the total domain names under our management remain essentially flat at 10.6 million, when compared to December 31, 2012. The total domain names under our management continue to be impacted by two customers who have acquired their own accreditation no longer registering new domain names on our platform. In addition, we provide provisioning services on a monthly basis to accredited registrars who use our technical systems to process domain registrations with their own accreditation. As of December 31, 2013, we managed 3.6 million domain names on behalf of other accredited registrars, an increase of 0.2 million compared as of December 31, 2012.

Retail

Net revenues from Retail for Fiscal 2013, as compared to Fiscal 2012, increased by $14.2 million to $24.9 million. This increase was largely due to an increase of $12.6 million to $16.5 million for Ting's mobile device and service sales made during Fiscal 2013, as well as the success that our retail marketing initiatives and improved websites are having on our ability to attract new customers and retain existing ones for Hover.

As of December 31, 2013, Ting had 48,000 subscribers and 74,000 mobile devices under its management compared to 10,000 subscribers and 15,000 devices under management as of December 31, 2012.

Portfolio

During Fiscal 2013, Portfolio revenue increased by $1.5 million, or 25%, to $7.5 million when compared to Fiscal 2012. This increase primarily resulted from payments we received on our withdrawal for the domain related rights for our .media and .marketing new gTLD applications being partially offset by lower sales of big ticket domains and certain of our vendors electing not to repeat market development programs that they undertook during fiscal 2012.

We have two primary buyers for our domain names - domain investors and businesses. While businesses domain sales continue to grow, we have begun to see evidence of domain investors interest slowing as they attempt to assess the impact the introduction of new gTLD’s may have on their businesses. Accordingly, until the impact of new gTLD’s can be appropriately assessed, we will be shifting our efforts towards appealing more to businesses while continuing to work with domain investors.

The market for monetization of domain names is rapidly evolving and is being impacted by uncertainty around the implementation of ICANN’s new gTLD Program.

COST OF REVENUES

Wholesale

OpenSRS Domain Service

Cost of revenues for domain registrations represents the amortization of registry fees on a basis consistent with the recognition of revenues from our customers, namely ratably over the term of provision of the service. Registry fees, the primary component of cost of revenues, are paid in full when the domain is registered, and are initially recorded as prepaid domain registry fees. This accounting treatment reasonably approximates a recognition pattern that corresponds with the provision of the services during the period. Market development funds that do not meet the criteria for revenue recognition under ASC 605-50 “Customer Payments and Incentives”, are reflected as cost of goods sold and are recognized as earned.

Value-Added Services

Costs of revenues for Value-Added Services include licensing and royalty costs related to the provisioning of certain components of related to hosted email, fees paid to third-party service providers, primarily for trust certificates and for printing services in connection with Platypus. Fees payable for trust certificates are amortized on a basis consistent with the provision of service, generally one year, while email hosting fees and monthly printing fees are included in cost of revenues in the month they are incurred.

Retail

Costs of revenues for our provision and management of Internet services through our retail site, Hover.com, include the amortization of registry fees on a basis consistent with the recognition of revenues from our customers, namely ratably over the term of provision of the service. Registry fees, the primary component of cost of revenues, are paid in full when the domain is registered, and are recorded as prepaid domain registry fees.

The costs of revenue for Ting's mobile phone service include hardware (the cost of devices sold to our customers) and network services (our customers' voice, messaging and data usage) provided by our Mobile Network Operator.

Portfolio

Costs of revenues for our Portfolio represent the amortization of registry fees for domains added to our portfolio over the renewal period, which is generally one year, the value attributed under intangible assets to any domain name sold and any impairment charges that may arise from our assessment of our domain name intangible assets. As the total names in our portfolio continue to grow, this cost will become a more significant component of our cost of revenues. Payments for domain registrations are payable for the full term of service at the time of activation of service and are recorded as prepaid domain registry fees and are expensed ratably over the renewal term.

Costs of revenues for our larger ad-supported content site include the fees paid to third-party service providers, primarily for digital certificates sold through our content sites and content license fees.

Network costs

Network costs include personnel and related expenses, depreciation and amortization, communication costs, equipment maintenance, stock-based compensation and employee and related costs directly associated with the management and maintenance of our network. Communication costs include bandwidth, co-location and provisioning costs we incur to support the supply of all our services.

The following table presents our cost of revenues, by revenue source:

The following table presents our cost of revenues, as a percentage of total cost of revenues for the periods presented:

Total cost of revenues for Fiscal 2013 increased by $10.0 million, or 11%, to $98.5 million from $88.5 million in Fiscal 2012 primarily the result of increased sales volumes. Prepaid domain registration and other Internet services fees as of December 31, 2013 decreased by $1.5 million, or 3%, to $56.0 million from $57.5 million at December 31, 2012. Prepaid domain registration and other Internet services fees have been impacted by certain of our customers, who have acquired their own registrar accreditation, no longer registering new domain names on our platform.

Wholesale

Costs for Wholesale for Fiscal 2013 increased by $0.4 million to $75.6 million, when compared to Fiscal 2012, primarily the result of increases in registration fees paid to the registries that were implemented on January 15, 2012 and the fact that certain marketing initiatives undertaken by both vendors and resellers in fiscal 2012 have either been significantly scaled back or cancelled for fiscal 2013.

Retail

Costs for Retail for Fiscal 2013, increased by $9.3 million, to $16.1 million, when compared to Fiscal 2012. This increase resulted primarily from additional costs of $8.5 million to $12.6 million incurred for Ting mobile device and service sales made during the year, as well as the increased cost resulting from the additional volume in Hover services.

Portfolio

Costs for Portfolio increased by $0.4 million for Fiscal 2013, to $1.2 million when compared to Fiscal 2012, primarily the result of costs associated with our New gTLD applications.

Network Costs

Network costs decreased by $0.2 million for Fiscal 2013, to $5.5 million as compared to Fiscal 2012.

These results reflect our improved efficiency in operating and managing our co-location facilities, which has also enabled us to decrease our capital spend on network equipment.

SALES AND MARKETING

Sales and marketing expenses consist primarily of personnel costs. These costs include commissions and related expenses of our sales, product management, public relations, call center, support and marketing personnel. Other sales and marketing expenses include customer acquisition costs, advertising and other promotional costs.

Sales and marketing expenses for Fiscal 2013 increased by $3.4 million, or 40%, to $12.1 million as compared to Fiscal 2012. This increase primarily related to workforce and marketing expenses incurred in connection with our Ting mobile service offering.

Excluding movements in exchange rates, we expect sales and marketing expenses for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2014 (“Fiscal 2014”) to increase slightly, in absolute dollars, as we adjust our marketing programs and sales and customer support personnel costs to meet future opportunities in the marketplace.

TECHNICAL OPERATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT

Technical operations and development expenses consist primarily of personnel costs and related expenses required to support the development of new or enhanced service offerings and the maintenance and upgrading of existing infrastructure. This includes expenses incurred in the research, design and development of technology that we use to register domain names, email, retail, domain portfolio and other Internet services, as well as to distribute our digital content services. Editorial costs relating to the rating and review of the software content libraries are included in the costs of product development. All technical operations and development costs are expensed as incurred.

Technical operations and development expenses for Fiscal 2013 decreased by $0.1 million, or 3%, to $4.2 million when compared to Fiscal 2012. These decreases primarily resulted from a decrease in workforce costs. This decrease resulted from payment received for a 2010 Ontario Interactive Digital Media Tax Credit (“OIDMTC”) of $0.4 million, primarily related to eligible personnel costs, during Fiscal 2013. This was partially offset by an increase in workforce related costs in the amount of $0.3 million.

We expect technical operations and development expenses for Fiscal 2014, in absolute dollars, to increase slightly when compared to Fiscal 2013.

GENERAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE

General and administrative expenses consist primarily of compensation and related costs for managerial and administrative personnel, fees for professional services, public listing expenses, rent, foreign exchange and other general corporate expenses.

 General and administrative expenses for Fiscal 2013 increased by $0.6 million, or 9%, to $7.2 million as compared to Fiscal 2012. This increase was primarily the result of incremental workforce related costs as well as additional costs incurred in processing a higher volume of credit cards.

We expect general and administrative expenses for Fiscal 2014, in absolute dollars, to increase slightly when compared to Fiscal 2013.

DEPRECIATION OF PROPERTY AND EQUIPMENT

Property and equipment is depreciated on a straight-line basis over the estimated useful lives of the assets.

Depreciation costs for Fiscal 2013 remained essentially flat at $0.2 million.

LOSS ON DISPOSITION OF PROPERTY AND EQUIPMENT

As part of our ongoing initiatives to improve the efficiency of our production environment, we retired some older computer hardware at our co-location facilities during Fiscal 2012, which resulted in a loss on the disposition of such equipment.

AMORTIZATION OF INTANGIBLE ASSETS

Amortization of intangible assets consists of amounts arising in connection with the acquisition of Innerwise, Inc. in July 2007 and the acquisition of EPAG in August 2011.

The brand and customer relationships acquired in connection with the acquisitions of Innerwise Inc. and EPAG are being amortized on a straight-line basis over seven years.

Technology acquired in connection with the acquisition of EPAG is amortized on a straight-line basis over two years.

LOSS (GAIN) ON CURRENCY FORWARD CONTRACTS

Although our functional currency is the U.S. dollar, a major portion of our fixed expenses are incurred in Canadian dollars. Our goal with regard to foreign currency exposure is, to the extent possible; to achieve operational cost certainty, manage financial exposure to certain foreign exchange fluctuations and to neutralize some of the impact of foreign currency exchange movements. Accordingly, we enter into foreign exchange contracts to mitigate the exchange rate risk on portions of our Canadian dollar exposure.

We have entered into certain forward exchange contracts that do not comply with the requirements of hedge accounting to meet a portion of our future Canadian dollar requirements through December 2014. The impact of the fair value adjustment on outstanding contracts for Fiscal 2013 was a net loss of $0.5 million, compared to a net gain of $1.1 million for Fiscal 2012. The impact of the fair value adjustment on outstanding contracts was increased by a realized loss upon settlement of currency forward contracts of $0.2 million for Fiscal 2013 and partially offset by a realized loss of $0.4 million for Fiscal 2012.

At December 31, 2013, our balance sheet reflects a derivative instrument liability of $0.5 million as a result of our existing foreign exchange contracts. Until their respective maturity dates, these contracts will fluctuate in value in line with movements in the Canadian dollar relative to the U.S. dollar.

OTHER INCOME AND EXPENSES

Other expenses for Fiscal 2013 increased by $0.7 million, to $0.4 million, as compared with Fiscal 2012. During Fiscal 2013 we made interest payments of $0.4 million pursuant to the terms of our credit facility with the Bank of Montreal. During Fiscal 2012, we sold certain intangible assets with no book value for $0.5 million, which was partially offset by the interest payable in Fiscal 2012 of $0.2 million pursuant to the terms of our credit facility with the Bank of Montreal.

INCOME TAXES

The following table presents our provision for income taxes for the periods presented:

We operate in various tax jurisdictions, and accordingly, our income is subject to varying rates of tax. Losses incurred in one jurisdiction cannot be used to offset income taxes payable in another jurisdiction. Our ability to use income tax loss carryforwards and future income tax deductions is dependent upon our operations in the tax jurisdictions in which such losses or deductions arise. Income taxes are computed using the asset and liability method, under which deferred tax assets and liabilities are determined based on the difference between the financial statement carrying values and tax base of assets and liabilities using enacted tax rates in effect for the year in which the differences are expected to affect taxable income. Valuation allowances are established when necessary to reduce deferred tax assets to the amount expected to be realized.

Fiscal 2013 includes tax on profits of $1.8 million, offset by a recovery of $0.2 million related to investment tax credits.

Fiscal 2012 includes tax on profits of $2.1 million, offset by a recovery of $0.1 million related to investment tax credits.

We had approximately $0.1 million of total gross unrecognized tax benefit as of December 31, 2013 and $0.4 million of total gross unrecognized tax benefit as of December 31, 2012, which if recognized would favorably affect our income tax rate in future periods. The unrecognized tax benefit relates primarily to prior year Pennsylvania state franchise taxes and other insignificant U.S. state taxes.

A reconciliation of the federal statutory income tax rate to our effective tax rate is set forth in Note 10 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

OTHER COMPREHENSIVE INCOME (LOSS)

To mitigate the impact of the change in fair value of our foreign exchange contracts on our financial results, in October 2012 we begun applying hedge accounting for the majority of the contracts we need to meet our Canadian dollar requirements on a prospective basis. The impact of the fair value adjustment on outstanding hedged contracts for Fiscal 2013 was a net gain in other comprehensive income of $0.3 million. The impact of the fair value adjustment on outstanding hedged contracts was a net loss in other comprehensive income of $44,000 for Fiscal 2012.

The following table presents other comprehensive income for the periods presented:

RESULTS OF OPERATIONS FOR THE YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2012 AS COMPARED TO THE YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2011

NET REVENUES

The following table presents our net revenues, by revenue source:

The following table presents our revenues, by revenue source, as a percentage of total revenues:

Total net revenues for Fiscal 2012 increased by $17.7 million, or 18%, to $114.7 million from $97.1 million for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2011 (“Fiscal 2011”). Deferred revenue from domain name registrations and other Internet services at December 31, 2012 increased to $71.0 million from $69.2 million at December 31, 2011. Deferred revenue has been impacted by the transfer of a significant number of names by certain of our customers from our registrar accreditation to their own registrar accreditation. This required us to recognize all remaining deferred revenue associated with the transferred domain names during the current year.

No customer accounted for more than 10% of revenue during Fiscal 2012 and, at December 31, 2012, no customer accounted more than 10% of accounts receivable. Significant management judgment is required at the time of recording of revenue to assess whether the collection of the resulting receivables is reasonably assured. On an ongoing basis, we assess the ability of our customers to make required payments. Based on this assessment, we expect the carrying amount of our outstanding receivables, net of allowance for doubtful accounts, to be fully collected.

Wholesale

During Fiscal 2012, Wholesale revenue increased by $12.6 million, or 15%, to $98.0 million when compared to Fiscal 2011, primarily as a result of OpenSRS Domain Service revenue increasing by $11.2 million or 15% to $87.4 million. These increases resulted primarily from our success in attracting customers with increased transaction volumes, the impact of the transfer of a significant number of names certain of our customers from our registrar accreditation to their own registrar accreditation, the contribution from the EPAG acquisition that we completed during the third quarter of last year and the impact of our passing on the 7% registration fee increase implemented in January 2012 for registration fees paid to certain registries.

Value-Added Services increased by $1.3 million or 14% to $10.6 million when compared to Fiscal 2011. These increases resulted primarily from the sale of domain names and advertising from the OpenSRS Domain Expiry Stream and increased digital certificate sales.

During Fiscal 2012, the number of transactions from all new, renewed and transferred-in domain name registrations that we processed increased by 0.6 million transactions to 9.2 million when compared to Fiscal 2011. While we anticipate that the number of new, renewed and transferred-in domain name registrations will continue to incrementally increase in the long term, the volatility in the market could affect the growth of domain names that we manage.

As of December 31, 2012, the total domain names under our management increased by 0.2 million to 10.6 million, when compared to December 31, 2011. This increase was impacted by certain of our customers transferring a significant number of domain names from our registrar accreditation to their own registrar accreditation. In addition, we provide provisioning services on a monthly basis to accredited registrars who use our technical systems to process domain registrations with their own accreditation. As of December 31, 2012, we managed 3.4 million domain names on behalf of other accredited registrars, an increase of 2.0 million compared to the 1.4 million we managed as of December 31, 2011. The increase is attributable to one of our accredited registrars transferring 1.8 million domain names they were directly managing under their own accreditation onto our platform.

Retail

Net revenues from Retail for Fiscal 2012, as compared to Fiscal 2011, increased by $5.5 million to $10.7 million. This increase was largely due to an increase of $4.0 million to $4.0 million for Ting's mobile device and service sales made during Fiscal 2012 as well as the success that our retail marketing initiatives and improved websites are having on our ability to attract new customers and retain existing ones for Hover.

As of December 31, 2012, Ting had approximately 10,000 customers and approximately 15,000 mobile devices under our management.

Portfolio

During Fiscal 2012, Portfolio revenue decreased by $0.4 million, or 5%, to $6.0 million when compared to Fiscal 2011. This decrease primarily resulted from advertising and other revenue through our ad-supported content site, tucows.com decreasing by $0.8 million and the delivery of third-party advertisements on parked pages decreasing by $0.4 million. These decreases were partially offset by the increase in sales of domain names from our domain name portfolio. The decrease in revenue from our ad-supported sites was primarily the result of certain of our vendors electing not to repeat market development programs that they undertook during Fiscal 2011 while parked pages advertising declined as a result of the impact our domain name sales have on our advertising revenue.  The increase in portfolio sales primarily reflects the timing of portfolio domain name sales and may not be repeatable in future quarters. The market for monetization of domain names is rapidly evolving and there is no guarantee that we will be able to continue to acquire the same caliber of names for our portfolio from future expiring domains or that names we acquire in future will provide the same revenue impact as we have experienced from past acquisitions. In addition, the revenue we derive from our Portfolio is driven by general macroeconomic factors that affect Internet advertising. Our advertising revenues are typically sensitive to economic conditions and tend to decline in recessionary periods and other periods of economic uncertainty.

COST OF REVENUES

Wholesale

OpenSRS Domain Service

Cost of revenues for domain registrations represents the amortization of registry fees on a basis consistent with the recognition of revenues from our customers, namely ratably over the term of provision of the service. Registry fees, the primary component of cost of revenues, are paid in full when the domain is registered, and are initially recorded as prepaid domain registry fees. This accounting treatment reasonably approximates a recognition pattern that corresponds with the provision of the services during the period. Market development funds that do not meet the criteria for revenue recognition under ASC 605-50 “Customer Payments and Incentives”, are reflected as cost of goods sold and are recognized as earned.

Value-Added Services

Costs of revenues for Value-Added Services include licensing and royalty costs related to the provisioning of certain components of related to hosted email, fees paid to third-party service providers, primarily for trust certificates and for printing services in connection with Platypus. Fees payable for trust certificates are amortized on a basis consistent with the provision of service, generally one year, while email hosting fees and monthly printing fees are included in cost of revenues in the month they are incurred.

Retail

Costs of revenues for our provision and management of Internet services through our retail site, Hover.com, include the amortization of registry fees on a basis consistent with the recognition of revenues from our customers, namely ratably over the term of provision of the service. Registry fees, the primary component of cost of revenues, are paid in full when the domain is registered, and are recorded as prepaid domain registry fees.

The costs of revenue for Ting's mobile phone service include hardware (the cost of devices sold to our customers) and network services (our customers' voice, messaging and data usage) provided by our Mobile Network Operator.

Portfolio

Costs of revenues for our Portfolio represent the amortization of registry fees for domains added to our portfolio over the renewal period, which is generally one year, the value attributed under intangible assets to any domain name sold and any impairment charges that may arise from our assessment of our domain name intangible assets. As the total names in our portfolio continue to grow, this cost will become a more significant component of our cost of revenues. Payments for domain registrations are payable for the full term of service at the time of activation of service and are recorded as prepaid domain registry fees and are expensed ratably over the renewal term.

Costs of revenues for our larger ad-supported content site include the fees paid to third-party service providers, primarily for digital certificates sold through our content sites and content license fees.

Network costs

Network costs include personnel and related expenses, depreciation and amortization, communication costs, equipment maintenance, stock-based compensation and employee and related costs directly associated with the management and maintenance of our network. Communication costs include bandwidth, co-location and provisioning costs we incur to support the supply of all our services.

The following table presents our cost of revenues, by revenue source:

The following table presents our cost of revenues, as a percentage of total cost of revenues for the periods presented:

Total cost of revenues for Fiscal 2012 increased by $14.8 million, or 20%, to $88.5 million from $73.8 million in Fiscal 2011 primarily the result of increased sales volumes. Prepaid domain registration and other Internet services fees as of December 31, 2012 increased by $1.7 million, or 3%, to $57.5 million from $55.8 million at December 31, 2011.

Wholesale

Costs for Wholesale for Fiscal 2012 increased by $9.7 million, or 15%, to $75.2 million, when compared to Fiscal 2011.

This increase was primarily the result of increased domain registration volumes and increases in registration fees paid to the registries that were implemented in January 2012 experienced during Fiscal 2012 when compared to Fiscal 2011.

Retail

Costs for Retail for Fiscal 2012, increased by $4.9 million, to $6.8 million, when compared to Fiscal 2011. This increase resulted primarily from an additional cost of $4.1 million to $4.1 million incurred for Ting mobile device and service sales made during the year, as well as the increased cost resulting from the additional volume in Hover services.

Portfolio

Costs for Portfolio remained relatively flat at $0.8 million for Fiscal 2012 as compared to Fiscal 2011.

Network Costs

Network costs remained relatively flat at $5.7 million for Fiscal 2012 as compared to Fiscal 2011.

These results reflect our improved efficiency in operating and managing our co-location facilities, which has also enabled us to decrease our capital spend on network equipment.

SALES AND MARKETING

Sales and marketing expenses consist primarily of personnel costs. These costs include commissions and related expenses of our sales, product management, public relations, call center, support and marketing personnel. Other sales and marketing expenses include customer acquisition costs, advertising and other promotional costs.

Sales and marketing expenses for Fiscal 2012 increased by $1.3 million, or 17%, to $8.7 million as compared to Fiscal 2011.This increase primarily related to costs associated with the addition of Ting customers and the acquisition of EPAG in August 2011.

TECHNICAL OPERATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT

Technical operations and development expenses consist primarily of personnel costs and related expenses required to support the development of new or enhanced service offerings and the maintenance and upgrading of existing infrastructure. This includes expenses incurred in the research, design and development of technology that we use to register domain names, email, retail, domain portfolio and other Internet services, as well as to distribute our digital content services. Editorial costs relating to the rating and review of the software content libraries are included in the costs of product development. All technical operations and development costs are expensed as incurred.

Technical operations and development expenses for Fiscal 2012 decreased by $0.6 million, or 12%, to $4.3 million when compared to Fiscal 2011. These decreases primarily resulted from a decrease in workforce costs.

GENERAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE

General and administrative expenses consist primarily of compensation and related costs for managerial and administrative personnel, fees for professional services, public listing expenses, rent, foreign exchange and other general corporate expenses.

General and administrative expenses for Fiscal 2012 increased by $0.5 million, or 8%, to $6.6 million as compared to Fiscal 2011. This increase was primarily the result of incremental workforce related costs as well as additional costs incurred in processing a higher volume of credit cards.

DEPRECIATION OF PROPERTY AND EQUIPMENT

Property and equipment is depreciated on a straight-line basis over the estimated useful lives of the assets.