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Introduced | 23 June 2004 |
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TLD type | Generic top-level domain |
Status | Active |
Registry | Identity Digital |
Sponsor | None |
Intended use | Business use by qualified professionals |
Actual use | Internet & information technology professionals, consultants, real estate professionals, financial and accounting professionals, engineers, lawyers, communications professionals, medical professionals |
Registration restrictions | unrestricted to all registrants starting 16 November 2015 |
Structure | Second level .PRO domains are available to all government certified individuals and businesses |
Documents | ICANN registry agreement |
Dispute policies | UDRP, Qualification Challenge Policy (QCP) |
Registry website | www.identity.digital |
![]() | A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject.(February 2024) |
The domain name pro is a generic top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. Its name is derived from professional, indicating its intended use by certified professionals.
In October 2000 Jason Drummond came up with the concept for a new top level domain name (TLD) and established RegistryPro to jointly bid with Register.com for .pro. In May 2002 RegistryPro signed its contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the organization that administers global domain names, under which it will operate the registry for the new top level domain (TLD) .pro. [ dubious – discuss ]
The domain was originally launched in June 2004 with registrations restricted to four professions: accountants, engineers, lawyers and medical professionals in Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. [1]
In March 2005, the registrar EnCirca introduced its controversial ProForwarding service which enabled unverified people and businesses to register pro domains. Registrants then had thirty days to provide verified credentials prior to their domain being activated. Total registrations reached 6,899 by January 2008.
Following consultation with ICANN, the domain was relaunched in September 2008 with a wider remit to include government certified professionals in all countries. [1] Registrants are required to self-certify their professional status and agree to terms of use before registration, then subsequently provide detailed license information.
In 2012, RegistryPro was acquired by Afilias Limited.
The official domain website describes the eligibility criteria as follows: [2]
The domain registry allows registration of third-level domains in the following domains: [2]
As of April 2011, the domains may be registered through 44 accredited domain registrars. In January 2011, the number of registered domains surpassed 100,000. [3] As reported in April 2010, the majority of domains are registered in the United States (42%), followed by France (24%) and the Russian Federation (5%). [4]
A regulatory change made the .pro domain name unrestricted to all registrants starting 16 November 2015. [5]
In the Internet, a domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. Domain names are used in various networking contexts and for application-specific naming and addressing purposes. In general, a domain name identifies a network domain or an Internet Protocol (IP) resource, such as a personal computer used to access the Internet, or a server computer.
The domain com is a top-level domain (TLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. Created in the first group of Internet domains at the beginning of 1985, its name is derived from the word commercial, indicating its original intended purpose for subdomains registered by commercial organizations. Later, the domain opened for general purposes.
The domain name .org is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) of the Domain Name System (DNS) used on the Internet. The name is truncated from 'organization'. It was one of the original domains established in 1985, and has been operated by the Public Interest Registry since 2003. The domain was originally "intended as the miscellaneous TLD for organizations that didn't fit anywhere else." It is commonly used by non-profit organizations, open-source projects, and communities, but is an open domain that can be used by anyone. The number of registered domains in .org has increased from fewer than one million in the 1990s, to ten million in 2012, and held steady between ten and eleven million since then.
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Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last level of every fully qualified domain name. They are called generic for historical reasons; initially, they were contrasted with country-specific TLDs in RFC 920.
.sg is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Singapore. It was first registered in September 1988. It is administered by the Singapore Network Information Centre. Registrations are processed via accredited registrars.
.co is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) assigned to Colombia.
.tw is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Taiwan. The domain name is based on the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code TW. The registry is maintained by the Taiwan Network Information Center (TWNIC), a Taiwanese non-profit organization appointed by the National Communications Commission (NCC) and the Ministry of Transportation and Communication. Since 1 March 2001, TWNIC has stopped allowing itself to sign up new domain names directly, instead allowing new registration through its contracted reseller registrars. As of May 2023, there are 17 registrars.
.in is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for India. It was made available in 1989, four years after original generic top-level domains such as .com, .net and the country code like .us. It is currently administered by the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI).
WHOIS is a query and response protocol that is used for querying databases that store an Internet resource's registered users or assignees. These resources include domain names, IP address blocks and autonomous systems, but it is also used for a wider range of other information. The protocol stores and delivers database content in a human-readable format. The current iteration of the WHOIS protocol was drafted by the Internet Society, and is documented in RFC 3912.
RegisterFly was a New Jersey (U.S.) based internet hosting and domain name registrar that had their ICANN-accredited status terminated in March 2007.
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.biz is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet. It is intended for registration of domains to be used by businesses. The name is a phonetic spelling of the first syllable of business.