Afilias buys .Pro registry (and some pending TLD trademarks)
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
Afilias acquires RegistryPRO.
Afilias has purchased Registry Services Corporation (d.b.a. RegistryPRO), which operates the .pro top level domain, from Hostway Corporation.
.Pro has an interesting history.
When .pro first launched the only way you could register a domain was at the third level. You were required to show credentials for each second level your domain was under, such as .law.
In 2005 domain registrar Encirca started offering a controversial service called ProForwarding. As a result, many seemingly generic second level domains were registered.
There was much outcry in the domain community over this service, even resulting in EnCirca challenging domain attorney Bret Fauset over his claim on his blog that “Non-credentialed individuals can now register second-level .PRO names en masse through Encirca’s new Bulk .PRO Registration form.”
As of the end of September .pro had 117,264 registered domain names, according to reports submitted to ICANN. 43,493 of the registrations are at Hostway. Encirca has the second most registrations with 13,320.
Afilias isn’t new to the registry acquisition game. It purchased the dotMobi registry in February 2010.
RegistryPro has been active in filing trademark applications for top level domain names. It previously filed applications for .med.pro and .law.pro, but then upped the ante by filing for .med, dotmed, .law, and dotlaw.
Further Reading:
I can not wait for the launch of their new hybred tld .mobipro which will fill the need in the marketplace for consumers to be able to connect with professionals wirelessly!
Sounds great for .pro.
I just hand regged a dozen .pro domains at Encirca for $2.99 each.
Hello? Not much downside risk there!!!
Why wait for new tlds when .pro is up and running… and CHEAP!
@ Rob Sequin – interesting rules on Encirca’s site. Basically if the registry were to audit you then you’d have to show a professional certification…but of course the registry isn’t going to audit.
I understand. Here is what Encirca site says:
“November, 2011 Alert .Pro Registrants are no longer required to provide license information at the time of registration. Instead, you will be asked to indicate your profession. If selected for an audit, you will be asked to provide these details to self-certify your license credentials. A business license is acceptable.”
with “these details” being:
Name
Date of Birth or Date of Registration
Profession
Jurisdictional Country
Licensing Authority
License Number
Link to Licensing Authority’s Web site
END
So I can give them my driver’s license?
And this too from the site:
The .Pro domain is a restricted domain name, available to professionals who self-certify that they meet the eligibility requirements of their profession. A business or professional may register their trademarks, industry keywords, search engine terms, company names, or marketing slogans. There is no limit to how many dot-pro domain names an individual or company can register.
END
Since Affilias now owns .pro, one might expect them to relax or kill the “license” requirement.
Worth $2.99 a domain to me to try it.
@ Rob Sequin – I think Hostway effectively killed it a long time ago by not enforcing it. It’s not the registry that wanted to do that; it was part of the initial deal with ICANN.
With all the new tlds coming, I’m guessing Affilias wants to re-launch .pro so maybe they’ll renegotiate the terms with ICANN.
I remember .mobi was going to require all .mobi domains to be developed or they were going to take them back. That never happened either.
So, I regged CubaTravel.pro, CubanCigars.pro, CubaVacations.pro and will probably be regging more at $2.99.
Having a good experience at Encirca with prices, user interface and customer service (I am not affiliated with Encirca in any way).
@ Rob – my understanding is they’ve tried to renegotiate .pro several times. They got some reprieve a couple years ago, but still can’t sell it to anyone.
The only requirement to own a .pro is that you be a registered business somewhere on earth.
Not too difficult, even domain investors usually have an LLC or something for their domain activities.
And I’m not even sure these restrictions will stay in place post the newgtld program, wouldn’t make sense or even a level playing field assuming most of those wont have any nexus requirements.