[dns-wg] Elimination of 2nd level ccTLD domain names

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004, Hank Nussbacher wrote:

> I'm new to this particular WG but I'd like to raise an issue that I feel is
> best discussed in a European DNS forum.  It has to do with .eu:
> <http://europa.eu.int/information_society/newsroom/cf/itemlongdetail.cfm?item_id=1383>
>
> According to my understanding, there will be direct 2nd level domains -
> like ibm.eu or ripe.eu or even tonyblair.eu.  Up till now, most countries
> employed a hierarchical structure such as ac.xx or co.xx or org.xx.

About a third of all cctld use some form (com.xx or co.xx) of 2nd
level domain. My experience is that most european cctlds register 2nd
level domains.

> What do we lose by eliminating 2nd level domains?

Eliminating secondlevel domains that were used to part the namespace into
categories obviously gets rid of the categorisation. OTOH it is more
recognisable (hence desirable) to have example.eu instead of
example.co.nl.eu or even example.co.eu.

> Since .eu is a totally
> new TLD - perhaps not much, but what happens to countries that then decide
> to follow the same path as Singapore recently did (they are cc'ed to this
> email):
> http://www.nic.net.sg/newsroom/20040816030345.html

Last year, the ecuadorian CCTLD (.ec) allowed second level registrations
(http://www.nic.ec/eng/novedades.htm) Allowing 'cute' names like ips.ec
(ipsec) or dnss.ec (dnssec) to be registered, as well as brand names
ofcourse. Also some European Community (ec) spoofs were seen.

> Are there any limitations to what a 2nd level domain name can be (not
> referring to trademarks)?  I.e. would a single digit or letter be
> allowed?  Would co.sg be allowed (up till now com.sg was the main
> commercial 2nd level domain)?

There are some technical boundaries. i.e. a label can not have more then
62 characters, nor can it be less then 1 character. Another restriction is
the character set used (in general a..z0..9-). Also labels are case
insensitive. There are yet other technical restrictions due to provisions
for internationalised domain names.

Prohibiting single character labels is mostly a policy restriction, rather
than a technical one. Other policy restrictions may be imposed, like
reserved labels. One can imagine prohibiting the registration of 'co' or
'mil' directly under a cctld is such a policy restriction.

Regards,

Roy Arends