In June 2021, the ccNSO Policy Development Process (PDP3) on the retirement of ccTLDs reached a stage where a Members Report was published, which includes the Proposed Policy for the Retirement of ccTLDs. These recommendations have been endorsed by the ccNSO Council.
In April 2017, the ccNSO initiated the creation of a special working group to develop policy recommendations on the Retirement of ccTLDs, which included representatives of ccNSO members – managers of ccTLDs. The Working Group prepared an Interim Paper on the Recommended Retirement Policy, which was published for public comment from May 5 to July 10, 2020. The second stage of collecting public comments took place from March 3 to April 14, 2021. The comments were reviewed by the Working Group, which prepared the Final Report based on that feedback. The Working Group unanimously endorsed the ccTLD retirement policy recommendations and submitted the paper to the ccNSO Council and ccNSO membership for their consideration and adoption.
Voting to determine whether the ccNSO membership supported the proposed policy took place from July 7 to July 28, 2021. The proposed policy was supported by the majority of voters: with a 58% turnout (100 of 172 members), 94 voters supported the proposed policy and only 6 voted against it.
Following the ccNSO membership vote, a Board Report will be generated to be submitted to the ICANN Board after approval by the ccNSO Council. The Board Report will include the Final Paper on the ccTLD Retirement Policy Development Process, as well as ccNSO recommendations. If the ICANN Board approves the recommended policy, it will be forwarded to the ICANN staff for implementation in accordance with the ICANN Bylaws.
Under the proposed policy, for two-letter ccTLDs, the retirement process is triggered when the corresponding ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 Code Element is deleted from the ISO 3166-1 Standard list of Country Codes. For exclusively reserved two-letter Latin ccTLDs which do not correspond to an ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 Code Element (four of those, .AC, .EU, .SU, and .UK, are used as ccTLDs), the retirement triggering event will be the ISO 3166-1 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166-1 MA) making a change to that entry. If the ISO 3166-1 MA makes any change to the exclusively reserved code’s entry (other than making it an ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 Code Element), the IANA Naming Functions Operator (IFO) will consider whether such a change should result in the retirement of the ccTLD. If the ccTLD Manager disagrees with the IFO’s decision to initiate the Retirement Process, it will be able to appeal the decision using the Review Mechanism pertaining to decisions on delegation, transfer, revocation and retirement of ccTLDs, which is currently being developed as part of the ccNSO PDP3.
For internationalized top-level domains (IDN ccTLDs), the triggering event will be identified in the Policy on the (de-)selection of IDN ccTLD strings, to be developed during the ccNSO PDP4. Officials from the Coordination Center for TLD .RU /.РФ are part of the PDP3 and PDP4 working groups.
When the country code is removed from the ISO3166-1 Standard, the corresponding ccTLD must be removed from the DNS Root Zone. This should ensure consistency between the ISO3166-1 list of two-letter country codes and the list of active ccTLDs. The ISO 3166-1 MA should be able to assign the two-letter code, which was previously assigned to a country/territory and later revoked, to another territory, so that this two-letter code can be used as a ccTLD again.
Under the proposed policy, as soon as a country code is deleted from the ISO ISO3166-1 Standard, the IFO should notify the Manager of the corresponding ccTLD and invite them to discuss a Retirement Plan. The retiring ccTLD is to be removed from the Root Zone five years from the date of Notice of Removal, unless the Manager has requested an extension for another five years and the request is granted. If the parties agree to a Retirement Plan, the process unfolds according to the plan and the schedule included therein, and ends with the ccTLD’s removal from the DNS Root Zone database. If the ccTLD Manager and the IFO have not agreed on a Retirement Plan within 12 (or up to a maximum of 24 months if the IFO has granted such an extension), then, by default, the ccTLD will be removed from the Root Zone five years from the date the IFO sent the Notice of Removal to the Manager of the retiring ccTLD.
Additional information:
https://ccnso.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-24jun21-en.htm https://ccnso.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-06jul21-en.htm https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/governance/bylaws-en/#annexB
