Re: [ICANN-EU] .EU

[Jefsey Morfin <jefsey@wanadoo.fr>]

At 20:54 29/09/00, you wrote:
>I support the resolution adopted at the ICANN Board meeting on 25
>September 2000:
>
>"It is therefore RESOLVED [00.74] that the IANA staff is advised that
>alpha-2 codes not on the ISO 3166-1 list are delegable as ccTLDs only in
>cases where the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency, on its exceptional
>reservation list, has issued a reservation of the code that covers any
>application of ISO 3166-1 that needs a coded representation in the name
>of the country, territory, or area involved;"
>
>..which in short means that .eu will be accepted as a ccTLD.

Unfortunately, I find it nice, quite confusing and may be costly.

1. The .eu string was ill chosen and never discussed. As considered on the 
icann-fra ML the Brussels document asked question about
     the management of ".eu" never on the choice of ".eu". In French and 
spanish "EU" means Etats Unis or Estados Unidos, ie. USA.
     Also some more agressive string like ".ecom" could have had advantages 
(just an example to show we had alternatives).

2. The official position of the ISO concerning EU is 
(http://www.niso.org/3166.html#euro) : 1 January 1999 marked the 
introduction of the Euro as the new currency for eleven member countries of 
the European Union. The Currency Code (ISO 4217) Maintenance Agency has 
announced a new currency code "EUR." Although a currency code exists, no 
country code elements for the European Union have been assigned in ISO 
3166-1. Why? Because in the context of ISO 3166-1 the European Union is not 
a country. The countries listed in ISO 3166-1 are taken from United Nations 
lists of country names. The European Union is an organization of 
independent, sovereign countries and not a country itself. If the countries 
making up the European Union should at some time in the future decide to 
give up their sovereignty and form a new country, ISO 3166-1 country codes 
will be assigned.

3. The provision used by the ICANN is the following 
(http://www.din.de/gremien/nas/nabd/iso3166ma/new02_00.html) : The name 
European Union is not officially listed in ISO 3166-1 because the standard 
contains codes of names of countries and not names of groupings of 
countries or names of organizations. However, the ISO 3166 Maintenance 
Agency advises all users of the ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 code to apply the code 
element EU if they need to represent the name European Union. The code 
element EU was reserved by the ISO 3166/MA in 1996 as the basis for the 
currency code element - in accordance with ISO 4217 - for the Euro: EUR. 
ISO 4217 uses the ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 code element and adds a third letter 
to it to identify the currency name. Due to the growing user demand for a 
code element for the name European Union and a parallel request of the 
European Commission to that effect, the scope of the reservation was 
extended to cover all possible applications of ISO 3166-1 in September 
1999. One application of ISO 3166-1 is the Domain Name System (DNS). It is 
up to IANA/ICANN to decide whether or not they wish to use EU in the DNS or 
not. It should be noted that the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency does not take 
part in the decision taking process of IANA/ICANN.
This means that the ".eu" is not actually a country but a money. Denmark 
and UK are supposed not to be confused withe Euro.

4. As a general comment, I disagree with the use of the ISO 3166 as a 
formal reference. Because, from the horse's mouth (Cord Wischhöfer who is 
responsible for the adminstation of the ISO 3166) "99 percent of the 
country names (and names of dependent areas) used in ISO 3166-1 are taken 
from official United Nations lists of country names. If in the UN 
environment the name of this particular entry changes the change of the 
name will also be effected in ISO 3166-1 (and ISO 3166-2). So the official 
policy of ISO is to always use the names provided by the UN. One more 
general remark. If a country name is deleted from ISO 3166-1 we usually do 
not reuse the code element used for this old name for a period of at least 
five years (ISO 3166-3 : deceased NICs). After that time the code element 
can be reused. So code element allocations in ISO 3166-1 are not "eternal" 
in the sense that the code elements will not be reallocated." ccTLD have to 
be perpetual (you do not change the address of millions of people).

5. The management of the ".eu" area is already creating many problems (cf. 
icann-fra ongoing discussion) and will probably boil down to few xxxx.eu 
for large companies with no real impact or ill european internet landscape 
representation and replication of the ccTLD in the form of xxxx.de.eu or 
xxx.com.fr.eu (whihc have only a few chances to be used and would be a real 
source of UDRP).

6. The involved NIC refuse to foot the ICANN bills. ICANN tells them : ok 
for the common ".eu" if you collectively sign a contract, which will most 
porbably serve as a model for the individual ccTLD contracts. It will be 
collectively discussed, so the model has a lot of chances to be less 
appropriate to the interest of each NIC than if it have been discussed by 
NIC or groups of NICs. The pressure is no more from the NICs (we do not pay 
the ICANN if ...) but from the ICANN (sign with me or you will not get your 
".eu").

Jefsey






>There are a lot of obstacles on the road ahead, but the result is good
>and will promote global competition.
>
>What do you think?
>
>Best regards,
>--
>Alf Hansen                     Mail address:
>                                  UNINETT FAS A/S
>aha@uninett.no                   N-7465 Trondheim, Norway
>Home page:                     Phone: +47 73 55 79 00
>http://domen.uninett.no/~alf/ Fax:   +47 73 55 79 01