David W. Maher Joins Public Interest Registry as Senior Vice President, Law and Policy

Market Wire, August, 2004

The Public Interest Registry (PIR) announced today the appointment of David W. Maher as Senior Vice President, Law and Policy. David served on the founding PIR Board as Chairman and was instrumental in the early development of PIR. He is a former partner in the Chicago office of the law firm Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, where he specialized in intellectual property and communications law. David will report directly to Edward G. Viltz, President and CEO of PIR. He will serve as a key resource in continuing to shape PIR's public policy positions and providing legal counsel to PIR.

"David's counsel has been invaluable to PIR's success and to me personally," according to Viltz. "We are fortunate to have David's continued counsel and extensive experience in the domain name space. In addition, we look forward to his assistance expanding PIR's leadership role on policy positions in the public interest."

"I am excited and honored to join PIR in this new assignment," said David Maher. "As leaders in the domain name space, we want to also take a leadership role in implementing sound policies that benefit internet users worldwide."

David was formerly the Internet Society Vice President of Public Policy. He was a member of the International Ad Hoc Committee, which provided the foundation for the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy, is a member of the WIPO Arbitration & Mediation Center Panel of Neutrals, a member of ICANN's Whois Task Force 1 and 2, and a member of the Visiting Committee to the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. David will be based out of Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Marc Rotenberg, one of the founding PIR Board members and Board Secretary, has been elected as Acting Chairman of PIR.

About PIR

Public Interest Registry (http://www.pir.org) is a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit corporation created by the Internet Society (ISOC) to manage the .ORG domain. .ORG is the Internet's third largest "generic" or non-country specific top-level domain with over 3 million domain names registered worldwide. It is viewed as the home of non-commercial organizations on the Internet. PIR's mission is to manage the .ORG domain in an exemplary manner while educating and empowering the global non-commercial community to more effectively utilize the Internet. PIR is based in Reston, Virginia, USA.

About ISOC

The Internet Society (http://www.isoc.org) is a not-for-profit membership organization founded in 1991 to provide leadership in Internet related standards, education, and policy. With offices in Washington, DC, and Geneva, Switzerland, it is dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of people throughout the world. ISOC is the organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) and other Internet-related bodies who together play a critical role in ensuring that the Internet develops in a stable and open manner.

CONTACT: Public Interest Registry, Reston Michael A. Ward 703-464-7005, x113 mward@pir.org