.post

Status:	Active
country:	International
Manager:	Universal Postal Union
Registry Provider:	Afilias
Date Implemented:	2009
Type:	sTLD
Community:	Yes
Key People
Bishar Hussein, UPU General Director

.POST is a sponsored top level domain name (sTLD) delegated in the Internet's root zone. The Universal Postal Union, a specialized agency of the United Nations, is the sponsoring organization for the sTLD. It is restricted to use by the global postal community and industry.

The .post sTLD entered the root zone on August 7, 2012, almost three years after it was approved by ICANN. This delay was caused by the operator, the Universal Postal Union, being unsure of how to use the TLD. The registry backend provider is Afilias.

After entering the root zone, .post began accepting its first registrations, with postal services in Italy, Brazil, and Malaysia being amongst the first to sign up and go live.

Background

The Universal Postal Union submitted an application for the .post string during the first round of TLD expansion program in 2000, but it was not approved at that time. In 2003, the organization re-submitted its application when ICANN opened the second round of expansion for sponsored top level domain names. UPU's application was thoroughly evaluated by ICANN Staff and certain issues were negotiated until resolved. ICANN concluded negotiations and posted the proposed sponsorship agreement for public comment on November 3, 2009. Both parties signed the agreement on December 11, 2009.

The UPU initially selected CORE to serve as its registry backend provider, however following a competitive bidding process in 2011, Afilias was chosen instead.

On March 23, 2012, the Poste Italiane signed a cooperative agreement with UPU to launch the .post sTLD. Poste Italiane provided 500,000 Euro to help cover the costs needed by the UPU to set-up and launch the .post STLD during the 25th UPU Congress in Doha in September/October 2012. According to Poste Italiane CEO Massimo Sarmi, "Ours is a decisive contribution to successfully launch this initiative this year.post represents an undisputable benefit for customers increasingly using the Internet, as it will offer them the guarantee of a secure and trusted environment. This contribution is a very important step towards endorsing the efforts of our respective organizations, which have worked very hard on the project, especially in the last few months."