.PRO gTLD has become open to all since the 16th of November according to DomainIncite. The domain was delegated in 2002, and was supposed to be for professionals in different spheres. Because of this fact, there was a need in some additional procedures in the process of name registration. For instance, registrants had to submit the license to provide their professional activity, specify the institution or the organization which confirmed their professional qualification, etc.
Since November 16 all these requirements have been cancelled, and anyone is now able to register his name in the .PRO zone. The same rules will spread on the renewals. Moreover, they will act for the registration of third-level domains in such second-level domains as med.pro (which was initially launched only for physicians) or law.pro (addressed for lawyers).
The decision, which was made by .PRO manager Afilias and fixed in the new agreement with ICANN, is likely to be explained by low popularity of the .PRO zone as the number of domain names has recently significantly decreased. Top result was reached in July, 2012 when there were about 160,000 registered domain names in it. Now there are only about 106,000.
