The Policy Answer. Is .Pro in the Testbed? That's the question I would ask when trying to decide whether to grant RegistryPro's request for permission to market second-level domains. If .pro is part of the testbed, then it should proceed with the plan it proposed to ICANN in 2000. As soon as the testbed is complete, however, it should be allowed to do whatever it wants. (Chris Ambler suggested a similar solution first yesterday.) As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I think the testbed is dead. Let's just abandon the charade that we're trying to evaluate some set of data against some set of hypotheses. (Karl makes similar points well here). If we acknowledge that reality, RegistryPro's request should be granted.

The Personal Answer. Beginning in April of this year, .pro-accredited registrars began marketing various pre-registrations and sunrise registrations for .pro. I've submitted applications with a couple of registrars, at least one of which required me to pre-pay for the domain name. So I'm already out several hundred dollars for a possible registration of the style *.law.pro. I'll be disappointed, and more than a little frustrated, if my order is cancelled, my place in the queue is changed, or I'm asked to pay an additional amount for the new second-level domain name. I thought *.law.pro was a good idea when I registered, and I still think so. I wouldn't mind seeing how it works out. But I've waited this long, so what's another six months?

I'll admit that fausett.pro is a better domain name than fausett.law.pro. As I understand the RegistryPro proposal, however, I wouldn't qualify for fausett.pro unless I had licenses in both law and another discipline. If I were licensed in a single area, the best I could get would be a redirect from fausett.pro to fausett.law.pro. That seems plainly silly. I suspect that the only reason RegistryPro proposed this redirect service was because it thought it needed to retain some core of its original naming proposal if it hoped to get ICANN's approval. That's silly too. RegistryPro's trying to meet ICANN's need for control rather the market's desire for a simple product. If RegistryPro and ICANN are going to change the naming convention, don't go halfway. Just abandon the professional subdomains and let all licensed professionals operate under .pro together. RegistryPro, and its whois database, can provide a directory service if it needs to distinguish lawyers from doctors and accountants.