Internet Provider Security (IPS) tags are used by Internet Service Providers (ISPs)—specifically, registrars—to administer a domain registration service and related DNS services. An IPS tag is the case-sensitive label that applies to each ISP and is required to transfer domain names from one registrar to another. All ISPs are allocated these tags when they apply to become an ISP.
The original expansion of "IPS tag" was created and lost with Nominet UK's predecessor, the Naming Committee; however it is widely accepted that it probably stands for "Internet Provider Security tag". The term "IPS tag" itself is now considered obsolete by Nominet, and has since been replaced by the term "registrar tag".
Transferring your domain name from one registrar to another requires the original registrar to change the IPS tag to that of the new registrar. Domain name owners typcally can't change this tag themselves, only the registrar; hence delays often occur when transferring to a new registrar as the old one has no reason to rush the process through.
Famous quotes containing the words provider and/or security:
“That is the thankless position of the father in the family—the provider for all, and the enemy of all.”
—J. August Strindberg (1849–1912)
“Thanks to recent trends in the theory of knowledge, history is now better aware of its own worth and unassailability than it formerly was. It is precisely in its inexact character, in the fact that it can never be normative and does not have to be, that its security lies.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)