POSTPONED REGISTRATION OF PRO-DOMAINS STARTS AT DECEMBER 10 2003 -exclusive for lawyers, doctors and accountants

ICANN Registrar Secura announces today, that the company is accepting now pre-registration of pro-domains for free on and after November 23 2003.(https://www.domainregistry.de/pro.html)

(PRWEB) November 23, 2003

COLOGNE, Germany- November 23, 2003.

When .Pro launches on December 10, addresses in the form "yourname.pro" will now be available to any registrant satisfying the requirements for a corresponding law.pro, med.pro or cpa.pro Internet address. Approval for second-level domains was granted to the .Pro registry during the recent ICANN Board meeting in Tunisia. Lawyers, Doctors and Accountants can now have a short memorable pro-domain name.

"We think, that .Pro becomes a more attractive domain for professionals now that they can get a pro-domain such as'generalhospital.pro' in addition to 'generalhospital.med.pro'," says Hans-Peter Oswald, CEO of ICANN and Registrypro accredited registrar SECURA.

In order to register a domain at .pro, you must register also a domain at least at one of the subdomains - cpa.pro, law.pro or med.pro. In other words: You can get only drrichards.pro, if you also register drrichards.med.pro

The pro-domains are an exclusive domain. Only if you are a lawyer, medical doctor,accountant(cpa), you are entitled to get a pro-domain. Other liberal professions will be perhaps later also in the position, to order a pro-domain. A self certification that you belong to one of these groups is necessary. It is not possible to register at .pro, but at law.pro, med.pro and cpa.pro. Professionals can pre-register for free at the ICANN Registrar Secura (https://www.domainregistry.de/pro.html)

What is .Pro?

Professionals spend years in school to further their education, years in training and preparation to pass strict exams and finally achieve a license to practice in their field of specialty. Along with maintaining their image and credibility, a professional must earn the trust of his/her client. This is easy to establish in person, but difficult to convey over the Internet. In the physical world - professionals and their clients can have private and confidential discussions, face to face or telephonically. To ensure trust online and conduct business with propriety, communications and transactions must remain private and secure. RegistryPro offers a way to solve this challenge with the new Top Level Domain (TLD) extension .

The .Pro TLD will offer professionals a distinctive presence on the Internet. Unlike other more common domain names, such as .com and .net, RegistryPro's .Pro names will be uniquely valuable since they will be available only to professionals who self certify that they meet the eligibility requirements. The ProCert Certificate is based on the self certification of the customer and an individual check of each applicant by the Registrar, who uses databases and records for this check. Additionally, RegistryPro will offer profession specific domain strings, such as .law.pro, .med.pro and .cpa.pro allowing the online community to immediately identify the professional field they seek.

Professional integrity is important to you and so is providing confidential communication to your clients and or patients. The .Pro bundle, which includes the .ProCert professional level digital certificate, offers you a solution for identifying yourself as a concerned professional who takes electronic security seriously. .Pro provides the efficiency of the digital economy with the security to support it.

.Pro is unlike any other domain name extension to date. It is exclusively available to professionals who certify that they meet the requirements of their profession and provide eligibility information with their registration. To facilitate private and confidential communications, .Pro will be the first registry to bundle a digital certificate with every domain name, which will provide the ability to send encrypted and non-repudiated email. Other security services such as time-stamping and electronic notarization are also possible.

The .Pro product includes a web address for the following professions:

(johnsmith.med.pro)

(johnsmith.law.pro)

(johnsmith.cpa.pro)

A validation process cross-verifies the registrant's self-certified personal identity and professional information against appropriate licensing databases (i.e. state, or jurisdiction specific). Other services will be available and provided through the Registrar such as website design, web hosting, email and more. What are the basic eligibility criteria?

Generally, to be in compliance with the professional eligibility requirements, a registrant must be either:

1. An individual who is currently licensed as

a Certified Public Accountant,

a physician (including a medical doctor) or

an attorney at law, who is currently licensed in one of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia; or,

2. An organization, that provides accounting, legal or medical professional services, and has an employee who satisfies one of the above criteria and registers on behalf of such entity or organization. Examples of such organizations include: accounting firms, hospitals, legal publishers, medical supply companies, or even the law department of a large company.

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