What happened to dot pro ?

Mon Feb 2 01:08:57 UTC 2004

One of the new domains set up in 2002 was .pro, with three initial
subdomains .med.pro, .law.pro, and .cpa.pro. They'd register applicants
only after checking evidence that they're licensed in the appropriate
profession. (Applicant sends state and license number, registry looks them
up to be sure the name matches.)  With the growing epidemic of phishing,
it would be handy to know that mail from, say, deloitte.cpa.pro was really
from my accountant and not from some phisher who'd registered a similar
looking .com.

They had a sunrise period in early 2003 so big firms could pre-squat on
their famous names and trademarks, and it was supposed to go live in July.
The registrar's site at registrypro.com is up, but shows no evidence of
having been touched since about May, and I can't find anything else since
May either.

Anyeone know what happened to them?  I know a couple of CPAs and lawyers
who could use a hard-to-spoof domain name.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl at iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Sewer Commissioner
"I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly.