Tucows has announced a new service that gives people the chance to own their own name – on the internet.

In 2006, Tucows purchased NetIdentity, a business offering email and web addresses for many of the more popular American and European names. Tucows announced today that it has over 150,000 domain names in its private portfolio including 39,000 different surnames, which covers 65 percent of the North American phone book.

These surnames are the foundation for the new Personal Names Service, which allows individuals to have control over their own names. For example, John Smith could own john@smith.net as his email address and John.Smith.net for his web address – making his online identity easy for friends, clients, and business associates to remember. At the same time, however, anybody else with the last name Smith could also own their own personalized package, assuming the first name hasn’t already been taken. (more…)