Arq Group, formerly known as Melbourne IT, is an Australian Internet company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange . Formed in 1996, its primary business is domain name registration in most of the major national and global top-level domains. It also offers web and email hosting services and online marketing services. Arq Group is said to be a profit-earning medium-sized Internet business, with its 2004 earnings of approximately 4.5 million AUD on revenues of about 60 million AUD, and continues to grow steadily. It has operations in several European countries through the acquisition of Cogent, as well as IDR Management Services, based in London. Arq Group currently operates four main global offices.For historical reasons Melbourne IT had a de facto monopoly on com.au domain name registrations for several years, providing more than half of its revenues until April 1999 when ICANN awarded it one of the first five registrar licences to compete with Network Solutions Inc in registering domain names under .com, .net and .org. From December 1999, when Melbourne IT listed on the ASX, the registration of international domain names has dominated its revenues. Internationally, as an ICANN-accredited registrar, Melbourne IT is ranked around fifth in the world, making the company the largest Australian domain name registrar.The company has attempted to diversify its revenue sources to reduce its dependence on domain names, introducing managed hosting products and consulting services. In 2006, Melbourne IT acquired WebCentral, Australia's largest web hosting company. In 2008, Melbourne IT acquired Verisign DBMS for US$50m.
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