The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Papa.ca was previously a wholly owned subsidiary of web development firm, Linnk Technologies. As a CIRA certified registrar, Papa.ca only offered .ca domain names to its customers.

“We are very excited to be able to service this new customer base,” says Stephen Smith, president of Webnames. “Not only will they have access to Webnames.ca’s unparalleled customer support, but a full-range of domain name extensions and web services that were not offered by their previous registrar.”

With the acquisition of Papa.ca and new services introduced in 2008, including the .ASIA TLD, Webnames Privacy and the upcoming .tel launch, Webnames says it is “looking forward to expanding on its past successes and remains committed to be the leader in domain name registration and management across Canada and internationally.”

Beginning as a spin-off from the Internet pioneers who founded the .ca country code in 1987, Webnames provides a range of services, including domain registration, corporate domain management, web hosting, SSL certificates and web design.

According to the press release, Webnames.ca has “registered hundreds of thousands of domain names, host thousands of websites and manage domain portfolios for many of Canada’s Fortune 500″ through its corporate services division, including Air Canada, CanWest Global, Pharmasave and BMW.

In other acquisition news this week, United Internet AG acquired the United Domains unit of Internet portal Lycos Europe.

Web Host Industry News

“EstDomains was using our Registrar Automation Platform, and this should make the entire migration process a relatively simpler one for EstDomains’s existing clientele,” explained ResellerClub CEO, Bhavin Turakhia. “I’d like to also mention here that all domains registered through EstDomains in the past, will continue to function smoothly, and their clients have nothing to be worried about. Their convenience is our top priority as of now, just as it has always been for our own clientele”.

ResellerClub is a Directi Group Business and “one of the largest private label web solutions providers in the world”. The company bills itself as an “industry leader in providing end-to-end automation to domain resellers, web hosts, web designers, and other web service companies”. It offers a comprehensive range of products and services and caters for thousands of web hosts worldwide. Its offerings include domain registration, advanced web and email hosting, live chat services, ecommerce modules, and website builder options.

Web Hosting News

AptHost.com’s hosting enables customers to upload and stream videos on their website through FFmpeg scripts such as PHPmotion and Clip-Share. The result is users have a website similar to YouTube. Established in 2001, the company claims to have introduced FFmpeg hosting (YouTube) to the shared hosting market.

“This is an exciting milestone for our company, and we look forward in scaling our growth with Rancho Santa Monica Developments,” explained AptHost.com’s Founder and President, Mr. Brian French. “With Rancho Santa Monica Developments we intend to build on top our incredible growth in the industry which we can attribute to our specialty hosting. Rancho Santa Monica Developments expertise and knowledge make it an ideal partner for AptHost.com. Our combined teams will create exciting growth opportunities for our company and customers.”

“With social media and video sharing taking the internet by storm, I would expect to see dramatic growth in the coming years. Companies such as CBS Networks, FOX, and NBC have just begun to offer full programming such as the new 90210 series on YouTube and other media sites; the trends are changing quickly and the demand for high quality and fast video hosting for the masses is increasing dramatically. Media sites will soon own a large percentage of the programming markets. Successful hosting of these types of media will come down to the companies that can offer the best support and service for this exploding market,” added Mr. French.

Established in 2004, RSDV is a Public Company based in Madera, California, USA. After the acquisition AptHost.com will increase its offerings through Tomcat Hosting which enables a Java hosting environment and allows website owners opportunity to create Java applications.

Web Hosting News – RSDV to Acquire Web Hosting AptHost.com

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed, but Endurance is a very large organization, serving more than 600,000 accounts around the world, according to the press release from Accel-KKR, and operating more than 24 “branded properties,” meaning that Endurance itself is the parent company of Many

Since being acquired by Audax in 2003, Endurance itself had made 17 acquisitions, including the notable purchase of PowWeb in 2006, and of IPOWER in 2007.

As is often the case with the acquisitions of large hosting customer bases, particularly in the shared hosting market, the migration of customers to Endurance was bumpy in both cases, and created a list of downtime and service issues, according to much discussion online at the time.

Unlike those acquisitions, of course, the purchase of the whole company by Audax group is unlikely to have any direct impact on the operations of Endurance or any of its hosting properties.

“[Endurance CEO] Steve Sydness and his team did an outstanding job working together with Audax to source and integrate 17 add-on acquisitions during our ownership period,” said Audax co-CEO Geoffrey S. Rehnert, in a press release, “building Endurance into a leader in the shared web hosting market. We wish Steve and his team continued success.”

According to the Accel-KKR press release, Sydness, along with executive vice presidents Hari Ravichandran and Thomans Gorny and their senior management team will continue to hold a significant equity stake in the company, while Accel-KKR takes on a majority share.

“While we are proud of the leading brands and worldwide customer base we have developed,” said Sydness, quoted in the Accel-KKR announcement, “we are confident that the best is yet to come for our company — and for our customers. Our industry remains a highly fragmented one, in which we are well-positioned to continue our growth, both organically and through acquisitions. We look forward to working with Accel-KKR to achieve this end.”

Web Host Industry News | Web Host Endurance International Sold

The Melrose Park, Illinois-based PeopleHost has been providing hosting and domain registration services to the budget hosting market since 1999, managing over 2000 domains.

“We have acquired PeopleHost as part of our long-term hosting growth strategy,” says Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendal. “We identified them as a company that we can transform with our world class customer service and technical support. This experience will be entirely positive for all PeopleHost customers.”

On the frontpage of the PeopleHost website, Namecheap Group CEO Richard Kirkendall and Hosting Services CVP Matthew Russell address the acquisition with this note:

“Effective immediately, Namecheap.com has acquired all assets and the customer base of PeopleHost. This is an exciting time for both Namecheap and PeopleHost as we look to improve and develop the services offered to PeopleHost customers… I would like to take this time to reassure you that we will not be increasing the price that you pay for your hosting account, nor will we be changing the service you can expect to receive. Our intention is to build and improve on the hosting service that you already receive.”

The company says it will be “retaining the strengths that PeopleHost has whilst looking to improve certain areas of the business,” citing the areas of customer service, service performance, and service expansion. The company also mentions it will be expanding its portfolio of services to PeopleHost customers to include VPS, reseller hosting and dedicated servers.

Namecheap, which entered the Web hosting market in 2007, has acquired a customer base of 11,000. Established in 2000 by Kirkendall, Namecheap offers web hosting for businesses, online stores, and blogs.

In August, Namecheap began offering a free Comodo PositiveSSL certificate with any purchase on its website.

Web Host Industry News | Web Host Namecheap Buys PeopleHost