Gauss Research Laboratory, Inc, the registry operator for .PR, Puerto Rico’s top-level domain (TLD), and Afilias, its technology partner, announced today that the .PR domain will reach the milestone of 30 years of service to both the Puerto Rican internet community and the public relations industry as of August 27, 2019.

Oscar Moreno, CEO of Gauss Research Laboratory said: “We are pleased to reach the milestone of 30 years of providing internet addresses that represent both the Puerto Rican people and public relations practitioners to the world. We are very proud of this achievement, which underscores our technology capabilities and our ability to contribute to the betterment of Puerto Rico. .PR will always be a key partner in Puerto Rico’s future.”

“We are fortunate to provide technology to support such a popular and growing TLD” said Hal Lubsen, Chief Executive Officer of Afilias. “30 years on the internet makes .PR almost as old as the internet itself, and Oscar and his team have done an amazing job. We offer our sincere congratulations on this significant accomplishment.”

Today, .PR is home to thousands of sites, including leading Puerto Rican firms such as www.ElNuevoDia.pr, local sites for global brands like www.lincoln.com.pr, and public relations practices like www.clarity.pr. .PR joins several other “country code” TLDs in offering a special significance beyond a geo-designator (e.g., ME: Montenegro’s code marketed as a personal address; and .IO: Indian Ocean Territories, but popular as “input/output” for tech firms). Savvy public relations firms know that a .PR name enables them to quickly differentiate themselves from the millions of other agency types on the internet.

In addition to managing the TLD, Gauss Research Laboratory has been a responsible and generous member of the Puerto Rican and global internet communities. This week, .PR is hosted a capacity building DNS workshop for its Caribbean neighbors in conjunction with LACTLD, an association of Latin American and Caribbean TLD managers. .PR brought the entire global internet community to San Juan for ICANN29 in June of 2007, and for ICANN61 in March 2018—the first major international event following Hurricane Maria. .PR has sponsored STEM classes (especially robotics and programming), the deaf community (Colegio San Gabriel FENAPUS), “Foros de NASA para Maestros K-12” workshops for over 500 teachers and much more. It also provides free names to all units and departments of government.

The .PR TLD underwent a major technical upgrade in early 2018 when Afilias became its technology partner and enabled EPP (Extensible Provisioning Protocol) for registrars. EPP capability fully automates name creation and management, bringing .PR up to the global standard and opening the door for more registrars to offer it. Distribution has since grown over 50%. EPP joined DNSSEC (2005) and IPv6 (2006) to ensure that all .PR names run on a state-of-the-art registry system that has full redundancy and is more secure and reliable. This helps make it even more “hurricane-proof” and assures .PR site managers that the names supporting their sites and email will be up and running no matter what the weather may bring. Local service to .PR names will be even faster in 2020, when an authoritative nameserver will be activated in Puerto Rico itself.

To help promote its 30-year anniversary, Puerto Rican organizations, public relations companies, and others interested in a .PR address will be able to take advantage of special pricing at participating registrars in August and September. Now is a prime opportunity to purchase a domain name for your company, mission or agency that sets you apart from your competitors.