The Public Interest Registry (PIR) is pleased to announce that Ascio Technologies, Inc., a prominent ICANN-accredited registrar and portfolio management company, and CORE, a not-for-profit membership association of Internet domain name registrars, providing registrars and registries back-end services, have joined the Protectyour.org international public awareness campaign as partners. Ascio and CORE are the first registrars to partner with PIR on the campaign, which was announced in November as part of an effort by the non profit registry to raise awareness of the increasing value of the .ORG top-level domain and the dangers of allowing .ORG domain names to expire.

“We are especially pleased to be working with two ICANN accredited European registrars Ascio Technologies and CORE on the Protectyour.org campaign,” said Michael Ward, PIR’s director of marketing. “In today’s domain environment, it is becoming increasingly important for registrants to stay informed and educated on how to responsibly manage their domains. The registrar community represents a direct link to the millions of individuals and groups that register .ORG domain names and we encourage more ICANN registrars to get involved with this worthy campaign.”

Ascio Technology’s Francesco Cetraro expressed his organization’s support for the program, pointing out that even before the partnership was formalized, Ascio was publishing information about the campaign in its publications. “We are delighted to be part of the Protectyour.org campaign,” said Cetraro. “We liked the concept as soon as we heard about it as we have been working to promote awareness among our partners and customers on issues such as this one. We look forward to working directly with PIR to make sure that our audiences are well-educated about domain-name management and the steps they can take to protect their domain names.”

The theme of education is shared by CORE. “As a membership organization, we regularly look for opportunities to educate our registrar members in order to help them better serve their customers,” said Paul Lecoultre of CORE. “In fact, we can think of no better way to ensure positive outcomes for all domain name holders than through the Protectyour.org campaign.”

Ascio Technologies is headquartered in Copenhagen and has an office in Munich. CORE is headquartered in Geneva.

Other Protectyour.org campaign partners are Alfa-Redi, Grassroots.org, the Internet Society, and the North American Consumer Project on Electronic Commerce (NACPEC).

As partners, the organizations will actively promote the campaign’s message through their Web sites and publications. They will also be disseminating and distributing materials that help noncommercial enterprises avoid the unintended consequences of allowing .ORG domain names to expire.

For more information on the Protectyour.org campaign, or to become a campaign partner, contact Wendy Rickard at The Rickard Group, Inc., either by phone at 609-466-4343 or by e-mail at [email protected].