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

.post is a sponsored top level domain name (sTLD) delegated in the root zone of the domain name system (DNS) of the internet. The Universal Postal Union, a specialized agency of the United Nations is the sponsoring organization of the sTLD. It is restricted for the use of the postal community/industry worldwide.

The .post TLD 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 Universa Postal Union, not knowing what to do with the TLD. It has been announced that the TLD will be tightly restricted to members of the international postal community.

Background

The Universal Postal Union submitted an application for the .post string during the first round of TLD expansion program in 2000, however it was not included in the approved applications. In 2003, organization re-submitted its application when ICANN opened the second round of expansion program for sponsored top level domain names. UPU's application was thoroughly evaluated by ICANN Staff and negotiated certain issues until resolved. ICANN concluded the negotiation 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 cooperative agreement with UPU to launch of the .post sTLD. Poste Italiane provided 500,000 Euro help cover the costs needed by UPU to set-up and launch the .post STLD during the 25th UPU Congress in Doha on 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."