New Domain Draws Ire of Ineligible

Doctors, lawyers and certified public accountants are welcome to apply. Hairdressers, plumbers and real estate agents are maybes. Don’t even bother if you’re an athlete, photographer or musician.

The approval earlier last week of a new Internet domain address--.pro, for professionals--is dredging up an old question about the status of one’s life work. Which careers are considered “professional,” and which are not?

In the latest example of how the Internet imitates the real world, complete with professional snobbery, the .pro domain name will be available only to “certified” members of the three aforementioned professions, although anyone can visit its sites.

Members of other occupations that credential or certify will be able to buy similar addresses eventually--but exactly who will be eligible and what proof will be acceptable is still to be determined.

“I find it very elitist and condescending to other professions who give as much to our society as a doctor or lawyer,” said Erinlynne Desel, a licensed massage therapist and spa director at Aveda in Washington. “I consider myself a professional.”

Linda Cornfield, office manager of the 2,000-member Plumbers and Pipefitters Union in Aurora, Ill., was dismayed by the concept and the limitation to the initial three professions. She said plumbers would not like to be excluded from the option of getting a .pro address.

“It’s a class thing,” Cornfield said. “You’re on this list because you’re white collar and we’re blue collar.”

The .pro divide makes for some unusual contrasts: Dr. Dean Ornish from the “Oprah” show could have a .pro address, but Winfrey herself probably couldn’t. Michael Jordan, or any other pro athlete, is a no but Jordan’s lawyer would be welcome. There won’t be a YoYoMa.pro, but accountants from Arthur Andersen are fine candidates.

Sloan Gaon, chief executive of .pro overseer RegistryPro in New York, a unit of Register.com, said as a company executive, he wouldn’t be eligible for what he calls the “gated community.” But he happens to have a law degree, too.

“We certainly need to draw the line,” Gaon said. “By opening it up to non-certifiable professions, we’d lose the trust.”

Gaon said it is vital to limit who gets a .pro address because many professions don’t have standard certifications, something his group will check out before anyone is granted a .pro address. Gaon is promising Web users who communicate with .pro owners that they will have a secure dialogue with a trustworthy professional.

Once a person applies for the domain name, RegistryPro will use public and private databases to delve into the applicant’s history and records. The point, Gaon said, is that when Web users go to a .pro address, they should feel confident that that person has been checked out, and that he is the person he says he is. “It’s an online diploma,” Gaon said.

Whether people will want a .pro address remains to be seen.

Letting consumers know which tattooists are certified and which aren’t is an attractive idea to Dennis Dwyer, who tattoos in Tucson. It would be helpful for people to know which tattooists are correctly sterilizing needles and can explain the procedure thoroughly, he said. “I’d be interested in being part of that group,” Dwyer said. But he also said it didn’t surprise him that tattooists didn’t make the original list and he wouldn’t be offended if they never were invited.

“It’s not equal to a doctor,” he said.

That’s what Louis Touton, general counsel of the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers, says, too. ICANN is a nonprofit corporation in Marina del Rey that oversees the choices of domain name registrars. Touton said those ineligible for .pro are more than welcome to go somewhere else in cyberspace.

“There are certainly plenty of domain names,” he said. Indeed there are: Fifteen top-level domain names such as .com, .org and .museum are available. If .pro physicians, lawyers or CPAs are disbarred, guilty of malpractice or lose their licenses, Gaon said they will lose the .pro address. Owners of .pro addresses will be rechecked by RegistryPro once a year.

Jerry Phillips, who has been an innkeeper for 27 years and is now executive director of the Professional Assn. of Innkeepers International in Santa Barbara, is in a profession that does not certify its members. Phillips said he never thought a piece of paper meant as much as the work itself.

“When I think of the Web, I think of inclusivity rather than exclusivity,” Phillips said. “The Web was supposed to be an open place.”