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RE: [ga] nTLD going gTLD
To date, ccTLD issues have not been very high on the priority list of anyone
in ICANN other than the Governmental Advisory Committee, where it has been
the primary topic of discussion. The concern within the GAC has not been
with open registration policies, but rather with the degree of control
governments should have WRT delegation of the ccTLDs associated with their
countries and dependent territories. To date the only action ICANN proper
has taken in response is IANA's issuance of a "Delegation Practices
Document" that does little more than restate preexisting policy. (ICANN's
failure to act on the GAC's top priority should be sufficient to discredit
those conspiracy theorists who spent most of last year arguing that the GAC
covertly controlled ICANN, some of whom have now moved on to contending that
IBM is the real eminence grise.)
Since some of the more prominent "open ccTLDs" (.nu, .to, .md) clearly have
either explicit or implicit authorization from the relevant governments,
there is no reason to believe that they will move to restrict registration
in the foreseeable future. Those whose relationship with 'their'
governments are less clear or which are actively opposed by them (e.g. .hm
and .tf) may be shakier bets.
As for what ICANN *should* do WRT ccTLDs: For starters, enforce RFC 1591.
At a minimum, this requires that ICANN verify that the administrative
contacts for each ccTLD exist (questionable in a few cases), are resident in
the relevant territory (not true in several cases) - with exceptions for
those cases where this is precluded by its occupation by a hostile foreign
power, and that the administrative contact genuinely has a say in the
domain's operation (there is one ccTLD currently operating whose managers
shut down the administrative contact's SLD more than a year ago and have not
yet reinstated it). More broadly, ICANN should take steps to ensure that
ccTLD operators meet their responsibilities to provide service to their
communities. Since it is neither practical nor desirable for ICANN to
establish a global enforcement bureaucracy to monitor ccTLD management, it
should actively solicit comment from governments and other "significantly
interested parties" and be prepared to act upon their advice if necessary.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ga@dnso.org [mailto:owner-ga@dnso.org]On Behalf Of Mikael
> Pawlo
> Sent: Tuesday, 04 January 2000 13:27
> To: ga@dnso.org
> Subject: [ga] nTLD going gTLD
>
>
> Will ICANN "do anything" about the national top level domains which today
> let anyone (even non-nationals) register domain names?
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________________
>
> ICQ:35638414 mailto:mikael@pawlo.com
> http://www.pawlo.com/
>