In what amounts to a massive victory for Richard Forman's six-year-old company, the ICANN decision to include the ".pro" TLD means the company will benefit from the registries for two of the seven approved proposals -- ".pro" through RegistryPro, a partnership between register.com and UK-based Virtual Internet and ".info," as part of the Afilias registrar consortium.

The ICANN selections -- .biz, .info, .name, .pro, .museum, .aero and .coop -- effectively clear the way for heated competition in the registration space, which for many years was monopolized by Network Solutions, the VeriSign-owned company which runs the registry of dot-com addresses.

In a statement today, Forman was ecstatic at the ICANN decision. "We're extremely honored that ICANN has selected the RegistryPro bid to be among the first chartered domain extensions ever to be added to the Internet," he said in a statement.

"Today's decision clearly shows that ICANN has recognized the business and technological strengths of RegistryPro's plan for a .pro top level domain," he said, noting that the .pro suffix will be used professionals worldwide, which includes doctors, lawyers and accountants

The company said it expects to begin offering registrations for the new TLDs as early as Spring of 2001, pending final approval by ICANN.

Register.com is part of a group of 19 registrars which formed the Afilias LLC consortium to push several proposals for new domain names. Although ICANN gave the nod to only seven of the 44 proposed new suffixes, the non-profit group hinted it may add many more new domains in the future, assuming the new additions proceeds smoothly.

Shares in Register.com were trading at $7.56 in early going Friday, down 3 percent from last night's $7.87 close.

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