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

Hank Nussbacher <hank at mail.iucc.ac.il> wrote:

> 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.

a quick scan showed that at least 1/4 of the 248 ccTLDs (some of them aren't
open for registration at all) allow for registration of 2LDs. Within
Europe, the percentage is higher and has been increasing, i.e. TLDs have
changed their policies from 'structured' to 'flat' in the past.

> 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)?

The problem described in RFC 1535 is still present (I've just coincidentally
looked at "new" TLDs recently), so I'd always recommend to block all
existing TLDs plus all 2-character SLDs (since most of them might become a
country code). Part of that was already realized in EU Regulation 733/2002
(number 19) and still can be found in the 

COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 874/2004 of 28 April 2004
http://europe.eu.int/cgi-bin/eur-lex/udl.pl?REQUEST=Seek-Deliver&LANGUAGE=en&SERVICE=eurlex&COLLECTION=oj&DOCID=2004l162p00400050

where - amongst other names - the 2 character codes of existing countries
(article 8) are blocked, although very likely for different reasons than
those motivated by RFC 1535.

-Peter