ICANN’s actions seem totally ridiculous here. They’ve now let corporations register ridiculous TLDs, but they won’t give Kosovo their own TLD? Even some dependencies have their own ccTLD. Hong Kong and Macao have their own ccTLDs, which are similar to Serbia’s views on sovereignty, so why not just give Kosovo their own?
I don’t think it’s fair to demand from ICANN that it registers a two-letter TLD which isn’t an ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code, mistakes of the past (such as .uk) notwithstanding. International recognition is a can of sandworms. Consider:
Belarus and Ukraine were UN members during USSR times
Soviet sovereignty over Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia was not recognized by most countries, but they weren’t UN members
Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia control their borders but aren’t recognized
Palestine doesn’t (and nobody knows where exactly its borders are) but is recognized by some countries
Republic of China (Taiwan) does not recognize itself (see One China Policy)
And ISO 3166 doesn’t map to recognized countries or UN members one-to-one. I fully understand why ICANN wants to stay out of it. If Kosovo wants to get a TLD for itself, it should do what Catalonia did with its .cat.
Besides, calling this “digital independence” is ridiculous.
I agree that ICANN should probably defer to ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes for the ccTLDs, rather than inventing its own set, though I think that just changes the target of the linked article rather than its substance. You could mentally rewrite it so that every time he calls on ICANN to give Kosovo a ccTLD, he’s instead calling on ISO to give Kosovo an alpha-2 code (and thereby everything else tied to alpha-2 codes).
The arguments and premises in the article and especially the linked paper are such that making them address ISO would require a complete rewrite. They’re also imprecise, failing to mention the +383 country calling code for Kosovo and wrongly claiming that VA isn’t a valid ISO 3166 code.
I think concerns about the political difficulty come down to the fact that ICANN has been entrusted to do this very politically fraught work. This is their entire reason for existence. They do operate one of the root DNS servers (which are intentionally all operated by different parties), but other than that, their operational expenses are essentially the cost of being a bureaucracy. They are not a registrar, in particular. Taking the political heat for recognizing everybody is exactly what they are paid to do.
Arguing about technical issues with namespace management is missing the point, and it seems pretty clear that it’s just a pretext.
I understand your complaint about the terminology (“digital independence”) to be saying that it doesn’t sound like a serious issue to you, just a minor quibble. The article goes into some depth but perhaps not everybody thought about the significance: Their online activities are subject to US law, which sovereign states generally are not. If they ever had a serious disagreement with the US, they’d have to consider that all their government services could be taken offline (through legal processes half a world away) as retaliation. For that matter, so could any private websites based there. That’s not a good position for them to be in. This is way more than symbolic.
ICANN has been entrusted to do this very politically fraught work
Not according to them:
ICANN is not in the business of deciding what is and what is not a country. Instead, we employ a neutral standard maintained by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency.
To the contrary, international recognition is a serious issue. It’s too serious to limit it to whatever a ccTLD represents – there are also matters of banking and international trade, car number plates, aircraft and sea vessel identification, international travel of citizens and whatnot. It’s too serious to leave it for a US-based corporation such as ICANN to decide. If all they want is a TLD, they should sponsor one. If they need actual independence, they should talk to the UN and ISO.
Then the conversation the public needs to be having is what they are good for, if not that, and how we can get their job defined clearly. I think the matter at hand is a pretty on-point one for advancing that cause.
There is no process to just create a new TLD without ICANN’s blessing. The “new TLDs” with the frivolous names like .ninja were created as part of what has, thus far, been a one-time thing. Maybe that process will exist in the future, but it’s not an option today.
I think the thing to realize is that recognition is not monolithic, there are a lot of separate pieces. The article gives a few examples (those telephone prefixes are from a different ISO standard, in fact). The problem here is that there is not actual consensus on whether they should exist; in particular, Russia takes the position that they should not, and has a lot of control over what happens in the UN.
I wouldn’t agree with it, but it would be a consistent position that “well, if the UN doesn’t recognize them, they should just stop complaining”… but I can’t imagine Kosovo is going to see it that way.
What ICANN/IANA is good for is a great question I have no answer for. FWIW, they publish a guide about their functions. Their role, and the role of the US in management of the Internet, is surely worth discussing. I disagree, however, that the issue of Kosovo is any good at addressing that. Their guildelines about ccTLDs are well defined and, in my opinion, quite reasonable.
As far as I understand, .ninja and .cat are “sponsored” TLDs that anyone (or rather, anyone with deep enough pockets) may apply for.
I agree that disproportionate amount of power that countries like Russia and the US have in the UN is a problem, but I don’t feel I’m informed enough to address it in this comment.
The author should stop complaining to ICANN. It’s just the wrong address. ICANN is “not in the business of deciding what is and what is not a country”, and shouldn’t be. Even if they decide to give Kosovo its own ccTLD, it won’t solve other problems, such as aircraft registration. ISO3166/MA should have some guidelines about who is eligible for a code (which is not exactly the same as being a country), though a quick look at their web site failed to enlighten me. It is the right address for complaints, or maybe the UN.
EDIT: Your point about recogntion not being monolitic is a good one. But the issue of country calling code has been solved with +383 (which the article dishonestly fails to mention), and the issue of banking with XK. I still agree with ICANN’s decision of delegating ccTLDs to ISO. That’s what I would do if I were them, if only to avoid dealing with Israel regarding .ps and with Transnistria saying “you recognized Kosovo, why not us?”.
I agree that it’s a complicated issue with a lot of ramifications, tying into a lot of other decisions, and I do not claim to know the correct answer. (And thank you for encouraging me to read up on the One China stuff, which I’d understood only vaguely.)
I didn’t get the impression that the article was trying to portray the calling code issue as unresolved, and I’m not sure what else you might have found deceptive about it. I guess it doesn’t matter; I’m not saying the article is unbiased!
Surely, anybody trying to enact political change is well served to put pressure on every party who could unilaterally resolve it. It’s not as though they actually have to choose one approach to the exclusion of others. ICANN can certainly try to avoid getting involved, and I’m sure they’d much rather just collect money from registrars and ignore the word’s problems. Neither Kosovo nor ICANN can be blamed for their positions (I’m such an optimist), but the issue isn’t about to vanish.
Being a white barbarian, I also have only a vague understanding of the One China policy. Now that Taiwan has a pro-independence president (or have they?), let’s see what happens.
I find not mentioning +383 dishonest because it sort-of implies that Serbian-Kosovar normalization is not happening and that Kosovo is less “digitally independent” than it is.
Mind you, we haven’t heard Kosovo’s position yet – the author is not even a kosovar.
TIL that lobste.rs is under the Serbian ccTLD.
ICANN’s actions seem totally ridiculous here. They’ve now let corporations register ridiculous TLDs, but they won’t give Kosovo their own TLD? Even some dependencies have their own ccTLD. Hong Kong and Macao have their own ccTLDs, which are similar to Serbia’s views on sovereignty, so why not just give Kosovo their own?
I don’t think it’s fair to demand from ICANN that it registers a two-letter TLD which isn’t an ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code, mistakes of the past (such as
.uk) notwithstanding. International recognition is a can of sandworms. Consider:And ISO 3166 doesn’t map to recognized countries or UN members one-to-one. I fully understand why ICANN wants to stay out of it. If Kosovo wants to get a TLD for itself, it should do what Catalonia did with its
.cat.Besides, calling this “digital independence” is ridiculous.
I agree that ICANN should probably defer to ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes for the ccTLDs, rather than inventing its own set, though I think that just changes the target of the linked article rather than its substance. You could mentally rewrite it so that every time he calls on ICANN to give Kosovo a ccTLD, he’s instead calling on ISO to give Kosovo an alpha-2 code (and thereby everything else tied to alpha-2 codes).
The arguments and premises in the article and especially the linked paper are such that making them address ISO would require a complete rewrite. They’re also imprecise, failing to mention the +383 country calling code for Kosovo and wrongly claiming that VA isn’t a valid ISO 3166 code.
I think concerns about the political difficulty come down to the fact that ICANN has been entrusted to do this very politically fraught work. This is their entire reason for existence. They do operate one of the root DNS servers (which are intentionally all operated by different parties), but other than that, their operational expenses are essentially the cost of being a bureaucracy. They are not a registrar, in particular. Taking the political heat for recognizing everybody is exactly what they are paid to do.
Arguing about technical issues with namespace management is missing the point, and it seems pretty clear that it’s just a pretext.
I understand your complaint about the terminology (“digital independence”) to be saying that it doesn’t sound like a serious issue to you, just a minor quibble. The article goes into some depth but perhaps not everybody thought about the significance: Their online activities are subject to US law, which sovereign states generally are not. If they ever had a serious disagreement with the US, they’d have to consider that all their government services could be taken offline (through legal processes half a world away) as retaliation. For that matter, so could any private websites based there. That’s not a good position for them to be in. This is way more than symbolic.
Not according to them:
– IANA
To the contrary, international recognition is a serious issue. It’s too serious to limit it to whatever a ccTLD represents – there are also matters of banking and international trade, car number plates, aircraft and sea vessel identification, international travel of citizens and whatnot. It’s too serious to leave it for a US-based corporation such as ICANN to decide. If all they want is a TLD, they should sponsor one. If they need actual independence, they should talk to the UN and ISO.
Then the conversation the public needs to be having is what they are good for, if not that, and how we can get their job defined clearly. I think the matter at hand is a pretty on-point one for advancing that cause.
There is no process to just create a new TLD without ICANN’s blessing. The “new TLDs” with the frivolous names like .ninja were created as part of what has, thus far, been a one-time thing. Maybe that process will exist in the future, but it’s not an option today.
I think the thing to realize is that recognition is not monolithic, there are a lot of separate pieces. The article gives a few examples (those telephone prefixes are from a different ISO standard, in fact). The problem here is that there is not actual consensus on whether they should exist; in particular, Russia takes the position that they should not, and has a lot of control over what happens in the UN.
I wouldn’t agree with it, but it would be a consistent position that “well, if the UN doesn’t recognize them, they should just stop complaining”… but I can’t imagine Kosovo is going to see it that way.
What ICANN/IANA is good for is a great question I have no answer for. FWIW, they publish a guide about their functions. Their role, and the role of the US in management of the Internet, is surely worth discussing. I disagree, however, that the issue of Kosovo is any good at addressing that. Their guildelines about ccTLDs are well defined and, in my opinion, quite reasonable.
As far as I understand,
.ninjaand.catare “sponsored” TLDs that anyone (or rather, anyone with deep enough pockets) may apply for.I agree that disproportionate amount of power that countries like Russia and the US have in the UN is a problem, but I don’t feel I’m informed enough to address it in this comment.
The author should stop complaining to ICANN. It’s just the wrong address. ICANN is “not in the business of deciding what is and what is not a country”, and shouldn’t be. Even if they decide to give Kosovo its own ccTLD, it won’t solve other problems, such as aircraft registration. ISO3166/MA should have some guidelines about who is eligible for a code (which is not exactly the same as being a country), though a quick look at their web site failed to enlighten me. It is the right address for complaints, or maybe the UN.
EDIT: Your point about recogntion not being monolitic is a good one. But the issue of country calling code has been solved with +383 (which the article dishonestly fails to mention), and the issue of banking with XK. I still agree with ICANN’s decision of delegating ccTLDs to ISO. That’s what I would do if I were them, if only to avoid dealing with Israel regarding
.psand with Transnistria saying “you recognized Kosovo, why not us?”.I agree that it’s a complicated issue with a lot of ramifications, tying into a lot of other decisions, and I do not claim to know the correct answer. (And thank you for encouraging me to read up on the One China stuff, which I’d understood only vaguely.)
I didn’t get the impression that the article was trying to portray the calling code issue as unresolved, and I’m not sure what else you might have found deceptive about it. I guess it doesn’t matter; I’m not saying the article is unbiased!
Surely, anybody trying to enact political change is well served to put pressure on every party who could unilaterally resolve it. It’s not as though they actually have to choose one approach to the exclusion of others. ICANN can certainly try to avoid getting involved, and I’m sure they’d much rather just collect money from registrars and ignore the word’s problems. Neither Kosovo nor ICANN can be blamed for their positions (I’m such an optimist), but the issue isn’t about to vanish.
Being a white barbarian, I also have only a vague understanding of the One China policy. Now that Taiwan has a pro-independence president (or have they?), let’s see what happens.
I find not mentioning +383 dishonest because it sort-of implies that Serbian-Kosovar normalization is not happening and that Kosovo is less “digitally independent” than it is.
Mind you, we haven’t heard Kosovo’s position yet – the author is not even a kosovar.