nanog mailing list archives

Re: Ukraine request yikes


From: Rubens Kuhl <rubensk () gmail com>
Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2022 17:27:20 -0300

More or less.  The Government Advisory Committee member from Ukraine has asked ICANN to:
- Revoke .RU, .рф, and .SU (all Russian-managed ccTLDs)

As the GAC member undoubtedly knows, that’s not how ICANN works. Barring a court/executive order in ICANN’s 
jurisdiction (and even then, it gets a bit sticky see 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/11/13/dc-court-rules-that-top-level-domain-not-subject-to-seizure/),
 ICANN essentially treats ccTLDs as national sovereign resources. A third party, no matter how justified, requesting 
a change of this nature will not go anywhere. Simply put, ICANN is NOT a regulator in the forma sense, it is a 
private entity incorporated in California. The powers that it has are the result of mutual contractual obligations 
and it’s a bit unlikely the Russian government has entered into any contracts with ICANN, particularly those that 
would allow ICANN to unilaterally revoke any of the Russian ccTLDs.

I wonder how ICANN would react to ISO removing RU/RUS from ISO 3166-2/3.


Rubens


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