Comment by kijeda
4 years ago
ICANN is finalizing a policy that will govern this question. In short, if adopted, 5-10 years after the country is removed from the ISO 3166-1 standard it will be removed as a TLD.
https://www.icann.org/en/announcements/details/ccnso-propose...
> There is a good faith obligation to ensure an orderly shutdown of the retiring ccTLD which takes into consideration the interests of its registrants and the stability and security of the DNS.
> The Manager of the ccTLD should be notified (Notice of Removal) that the ccTLD shall be removed from the Root Zone five years from the date of the notice.
ICANN’s lack of perspective is stunning. If I own a domain on any TLD my interest as a registrant is having that TLD around forever. I’m one of the few that thinks the new TLDs are an amazing opportunity for people to build brands and identities. I’m also never going to rely on anything but .com because I don’t trust ICANN.
ICANN is one of the most important institutions around, so it’s sad to see them working so hard for themselves and the registries while making registrars and registrants a secondary consideration (IMO).
> I’m also never going to rely on anything but .com because I don’t trust ICANN.
what's wrong with the other 2 of the "original 3" gLTDs: .net and .org?
i spent an afternoon digging into the ownership of all of this stuff, and .org felt like the safest option. .com and .net are more directly owned/operated by a US for-profit company (Verisign) who has complied with US requests to seize .com domains in the past. .org at least still has structural ties to a non-profit with chapters across the globe, even if it's incorporated in the US.
.org almost got bought by scummy rent-seeking bastards as of like a year or two ago. Wouldn't consider it that safe, personally.
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They’re probably ok, but .com is massive by comparison and there’s strength in numbers. Anything shady involving the .com TLD will get immediate, large scale publicity and pushback.
> what's wrong with the other 2 of the "original 3" gLTDs: .net and .org?
I find it interesting which TLDs took off and which didn't. I see exceedingly little use the venerable of .biz and .info, for example, yet .co has seen broader adoption in a shorter time frame.
Not to be over picky, but from my first memories of the Internet at uni (1990) there were 5 tlds, in addion to the ones you mentioned were ac (academic) and gov. Both are not open to the general public though so your point stands.
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Do you trust your country to continue existing? I do.
A country can simply change its name without major conflict. The people still exist. Law and order never breaks down. But it becomes a "new" country.
That could result in existing TLDs going away.
One possible example would be Scotland voting to peacefully leave the UK. It's very possible the UK would change its name after that, since it's not really the union of those two kingdoms anymore.
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Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, USSR have all disappeared in my lifetime. Austria disappeared briefly in my grandparents’ lifetime. Somaliland’s legal existence was extinguished in ~1966 and the international community is not letting its practical existence get in the way of refusing to recognize it.
Wars of conquest, civil wars, dissolution and change happen.
ccTLDs tend to be subject to much more baroque terms. For example, restrictions on citizenship, residency, or "genuine connection", restrictions on content and speech and other legal requirements.
For example when UK left the EU then all UK registrants of .eu domains were made to relinquish them. No grandfathering. This kind of nonsense doesn't occur on .com
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Yeah, if .ca disappears it means I probably have a bigger problem.
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The country yes, the TLD not as much
For example .uk - If one day we decide to ditch the monarchy and become a republic I imagine this might change back to .gb
Everything would probably be grandfathered in of course being a reasonably populated TLD, and .gb would probably be wayyy less popular because it kinda sucks as a character combo, but it's a possibility.
I would say com net and org but beyond that nope dont trust it for the most part. ICANN will fuck it up in a short sided ill advised money grab eventually
Something like this could fork the internet dns into multiple versions
There have been plenty of attempts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root
What will happen to .su? (Soviet union)
It all depends on the war. If Russia can defeat the NATO then .su might be useful again.. ;)
Russia can't defeat NATO.
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Are there any active .su domains?
Yes. And there is a growing number each year.
Finalizing and actually finalized are very different things in ICANN land. If they ever do try to implement this policy its likely to end up in court for years.
I can't see Afilias just rolling over when .io (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Indian_Ocean_Territory) ends up needing to be removed.