.post

a new top-level domain

Additional information

Applicant

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Established in 1874, the Universal Postal Union (UPU), headquartered in the Swiss capital Bern, is the second oldest international organization worldwide. With its 191 member countries, the UPU is the primary forum for cooperation between postal sector players. It helps to ensure a truly universal network of up-to-date products and services. The organization fulfils an advisory, mediating and liaison role and provides technical assistance where needed. It sets the rules for international mail exchanges and makes recommendations to stimulate growth in mail, parcel and financial services volumes and improve quality of service for customers.

Mission

The global postal sector is one step closer to obtaining its own top-level domain name on the Internet, to be known as .post (dot-post), thanks to the successful conclusion of negotiations between the Universal Postal Union and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

The UPU is the first United Nations agency to negotiate such a contract with ICANN. UPU Director General Edouard Dayan called the agreement "historic" for respecting the UPU’s unique character as an intergovernmental organization bound by international law.
ICANN said earlier that the agreement represents "a significant accomplishment for the UPU, ICANN and the global Internet community." ICANN CEO and president Rod Beckstrom added: "The UPU has helped mark out a path for other intergovernmental organizations to sponsor their own top-level domains and this helps us expand our multi-stakeholder relationships in this field."

Advantages

The .post top-level domain represents a platform for innovation in the area of global postal services,and will provide opportunities for linking the physical and electronic dimensions of postal services.

"A top-level domain for a service-oriented industry such as ours is an opportunity to develop a trusted space on the Internet for integrating physical and electronic postal services," said Paul Donohoe, ebusiness manager at UPU headquarters, responsible for the domain application and ICANN negotiations. ".post will be a unique and focused Internet domain with the potential to connect the entire postal community and its customers. The domain will enable the UPU and the postal sector at large to work on delivering new innovative Internet-based international postal services, such as hybrid mail, e-commerce, e-identity, e-communication and e-government, and built on UPU standards."