ISO 3166-based Top Level Domain Survey

> @Hi Jim,
> @	As far as I'm concerned and WRT TLDs, the "exclusive is bad" applies
> @ALWAYS. Having an individual UNILATERALLY and with no consensus decide how
> @things are to be done is bad always.
> 
> I agree...
(SPAM about IPv8 deleted)
Careful Jim, you're losing it again...

> I am not sure it is fair to create something and then assume
> that a country has to step forward to manage it and if they
> do not that it is "OK" for someone else to exploit it.

I really fail to see problems where you see them. The policy (despite what
you may wish to disagree) has been that ISO-3166 2 letter codes are used in
the IANA name space. The way to get them up and running is that any contact
that comes from a given country asking for management of that code is
considered to be the best authority until someone better comes along.
I can't understand what you find wrong with this.
IANA is not in the business to go around jet-setting from country to country
to see who should or not manage a certain domain (and that would be
interfering anyway).
Let's look at it from the IANA perspective for a moment. Theres this country
called Newby-newby-land which has never got in touch with you, so you have
no contact with it either. Suddenly a person who resides there asks to
manage the ".nn" tld becuse that's the corresponding code in ISO-3166.
IANA can't really refuse, because if anyone is in a position to decide over
something about "Newby-newby-land", and the choice is either IANA or a
resident of Newby-newby-land, then it's obvious to me that it's the
latter...
If a couple of days later, someone from the ministry of Duck-raising of
Newby-newby land turns up and asks for management of the TLD, then the
question of who is in the position of deciding something about that country
has two choices, either the resident or the ministry, and I also think it's
obvious that its the ministry...
Of course you can set up hypothetical questions like "What if the ministry
of transport says A and the ministry of education says B?", or "What if
there is a civil war and two different parties are declaring themselves as
the legitimate government". These questions are like arguing about the sex
of angels...

> Also,
> what about 2-letter TLDs that do not seem to have a country ?
> 
> .IO comes to mind. Are all of the fish in the Indian Ocean
> responsible ?...even if they do not use the Internet...

I find it VERY hard to believe that *you* think that ".IO" stands for Indian
Ocean.
For general information, ".IO" as taken from the ISO-3166 list stands for
British Indian Ocean Territory .
There are quite a few small inhabited islands out there. I may well be
wrong, but I would imagine that they ultimately come under UK sovereignty
(corrections accepted), so there's your government. You talk about these
cases in plural, so what other examples do you have?
Why are you trying to mislead, Jim? (silly question). 

> @Nominet (for ".uk") is generally taken as an example of how to do things.
> @However, much as you dislike the way a certain ccTLD is run, if it is not
> @for your government, the only way to change it is to get THAT government to
> @change it. It's not a question of "can they or can't they?" but rather "will
> @they or won't they?"
> 
> What percentage of 2-letter TLDs actually have active government involvement ?

Ah, the word "active" comes in there... To be honest, I would imagine that
those countries that are actually active are more than anything "screwing
up" that particular TLD (but that's a personal opinion). The UK government
is not actively involved, but is aware of Nominet.

> Do you consider the .US TLD under U.S. Government control ?

You yourself and so many others on this list certainly do, because you have
always argued that IANA is under USG control...
Yes, I consider ".US" to be under USG authority. The fact that the
whitehouse has not yet stepped in to take over control of it doesn't mean
that it's not under their authority. In fact, if there is any authority at
all in the WP it's when they say that the ".US" situation should be worked
on.

> @The fact that countries with flawed corrupt and non-democratic governments
> @are part of the U.N. doesn't mean that the U.N. is flawed, corrupt and
> @non-democratic. Those countries are not shaming the U.N. in any case, they
> @are shaming themselves.
> @However, trying to enter into how a foreign government applies its laws (or
> @lack of them) and/or how it runs its ccTLD is naive at least.
> 
> It sounds to me like you are saying that there will never be any consistency
> in the 2-letter TLDs.
Oh, I'm well convinced that there will never be across the board consistency
in the ccTLDs. Some will be managed in a fair way, and others will be
managed in a completely unfair way, however this is just a reflection of how
the world is, and it's seen from MY point of view. I view countries that are
not under democratic rule to be "unfair" countries, however many who live
there are perfectly happy. In some countries even today women do not have
voting rights... Those in those countries will probably argue that I am
living in sin or in corruption or... 

> If this is the case, then I suspect that we will have more
> people flocking to the new generic TLDs because it will be likely they can
> not trust their local government. In some cases, some of the 2-letter TLDs
> may disappear from lack of support or usage.

Not really... Probably those who live in countries where they can't trust
their local government are going to be mandated by that government to follow
the local policies. Those living in countries where things are well managed
and/or in a fair way are going to continue to use the ccTLDs.
If a ccTLD is mismanaged, it does create a certain amount of new
registrations to go to the gTLDs, but those domains already registered don't
pick up and leave (it's the lock-in dilema that many have argued for a long
time, but that others fail to acknowledge the existance of).
I am however convinced that a mismanaged ccTLD for a country that has a fair
government will not remain mismanaged indefinitely, but will transform into
a fairer system basically because of user-presure, so as more of the planet
becomes internet-aware, more fairer the ccTLD management is going to be. I
also think that it will generally go along the lines of nominet.

Yours, John Broomfield.