OPERATOR OF THE .pro Internet domain, Registrypro has had the ok from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to make the .Pro TLD available to more professionals worldwide.

Launched in 2004, the elitist .pro domain has usually been the private brandy room of only four professions thought worthy of its honour: Accountancy, Engineering, Law and Medicine. As if that wasn’t restrictive enough, the exclusive .pro club was also only available to members of those professions lucky enough to reside in civilised .pro countries like Canada, Germany, the UK and US.

But now new terms of service mean that .pro will soon be letting in all the riff-raff, with all those holding some form of professional credential, from any kind of government authority, in any country, to enter.

For those wondering just what a .pro looks like when it’s at home in its expensive house with two S.U.Vs parked outside, Registrypro helpfully provides the example of “doctorsmith.pro". These will now be much easier to come by, meaning that the low- level professionals will no longer have to make do with the embarrassing third level “doctorsmith.med.pro”.

Signing up for a .pro domain has also apparently been made a little less cumbersome. In the past, professionals were asked to send in fountain penned, hand-written documentation, with a big red wax seal from authorities who recognised the credentials. These documents were raced over to Registrypro headquarters by horseback where each one was individually authenticated and verified. But soon, all a pro will have to do is fill in a registration form noting their organisation’s name, their particular certification and their licence number, et voila.

Amidst the snobby outcries that standards have now been irreparably lowered, RegistryPro’s General Manager, Catherine Sigmar, maintained, ".Pro is still a premium domain space for professionals and professional entities”. She added, presumably with a fair amount of facial twitching, that opening the domain up to the ‘nouveau pro’ had always been the company’s aim.

.Pro will be relauched July 14^th 2008. The company would appreciate it if all new members would please scrub up nicely for the occasion. µ