Per the terms of the 1,2, and 3 character .pro release, you send a 15 page business plan, a check for $250, and if it impresses RegistryPro you either get the domain or get entered into an auction for the domain if there is more than 1 suitable application.
If your application doesn't succeed you get $125 refunded from your $250 application fee. You get 6 months to develop the site and the domain is locked down and can't be transferred during an agreed marketing period. If you want to sell the site, you need RegistryPro's approval to transfer ownership and the new owner has to sign up to a separate marketing or lock in agreement. You cannot sell just the domain. How many .pros sold in the last 5 years were for the website and not the domain?
Applications for 1 letter .pros are open to 31 March 2010 and applications for 2 and 3 letter .pros are open to 30 April 2010. Any domains not allocated will be auctioned, any domains not sold at auction will be awarded on a first come first served basis.
My initial reaction is that the terms are onerous, the selection of suitable applications lacks transparency, the application period is too short, and the single USD check payment method makes it difficult for non-US professionals and businesses to apply.
If you are going to write a 15 page business plan, maybe have to bid against somebody else, develop a website, spend money marketing it, do you then want to be beholden to RegistryPro on who you can sell it to, when you can sell it, and how you can sell it? Then get the buyer of the website, not the domain, to sign up to the same terms?
The selection of suitable business plans appears to be solely at the discretion of RegistryPro. If there are two business plans, one is excellent and the other is OK, RegistryPro have a financial incentive to conclude both commitments are equal, and send the domain to auction because they will make more money that way. Ideally, a third party should be assessing applications to ensure the best application gets picked, not RegistryPro's preferred applicant, or whoever is likely to bid the most at auction. Applications and business plans should be posted online for greater transparency, as should any decisions reached when there are multiple applications for the same .pro.
RegistryPro do not mention anything about languages for applications. The payment of the processing fee should be payable in any currency and by multiple payment methods, not just a USD check because that means you have to have a USD bank account and send something in the post that RegistryPro may never acknowledge receiving. That undermines the status of .pro as a gTLD.
The application window is too short. It would make more sense to leave all 1,2, and 3 character .pros in a database and let businesses and individuals submit business plans at any time. That way once an application of a suitable standard is received the domain would be allocated. If a developer or company was considering a project, they could look through a library of available short .pros and apply accordingly.
With restrictions in place, any auctions held will be hugely disappointing in terms of prices and that could end up damaging the .pro brand. RegistryPro should retain .pros not allocated and auction them in small blocks after removing restrictions. That way they could do a deal with Sedo or somebody like that and generate far more interest in the extension.
My concern is that there is still a chasm between where .pro actually is and where RegistryPro think it is. In the press release RegistryPro say they expect a "flood of interest in .pro" but with 300 unrestricted extensions out there, I doubt it will be more than a trickle and that will be people who don't understand how onerous the terms are.
Anybody wanting to develop a .pro would be better off buying a .pro on the aftermarket, you wouldn't have to write a 15 page business plan, you wouldn't end up bidding against other applicants, you could sell the domain and not just the website, the .pro wouldn't be locked down by RegistryPro, and whoever you sold it to wouldn't have to sign up to a similar strait jacket arrangement.
.pro is underdeveloped because of RegistryPro's continual meddling in who can register, lack of take up by registrars, and poor marketing. This method of releasing 1,2, and 3 character .pros is just an extension of what hasn't worked before. RegistryPro should be removing residual restrictions and signing up registrars. Trying to engineer the development of 1,2 and 3 character .pros with yet more restrictions and lock-ins is a waste of time.
