Re: AGN-DNS EARTH/USA Registry Terms and Conditions FIRST DRAFT

[shaw <ROBERT.SHAW@ITU.CH>]

John,

Well, my personal view is that I wouldn't want to 
allocate '.usa' and I've argued this within the IAHC.

In fact, let me generalize that statement, I don't feel 
too good about allocating any Alpha-3 (3 letter) codes 
from the ISO 3166 standard. My reason is these are 
'national geo-political' TLDs and therefore they don't 
really fall into the category of 'international top level 
domains'. 

As you probably know, some ISO 3166 TLD registries are 
controlled to varying degrees by governments - this is 
especially true for those with more restrictive telecommunications 
environments than the US. Even here in Switzerland, we'll 
probably see '.ch' eventually fall under the jurisdiction of 
OFCOM, the Swiss national telecom regulatory authority.

Needless to say, it is not much of a stretch to pre-suppose that 
Alpha-3 ISO 3166 TLDs (e.g., .usa) would fall under similiar types 
of 'jurisdiction'. While this may or may not be true for .usa, I 
think you can probably imagine some of the politics involved if 
certain Alpha-3 ISO code were allocated (for example, it is hard
to imagine that they should be allocated to anyone but a corresponding
national entity/individual). Personally, I think it would be better 
to stay out of the politics and hold/reserve Alpha-3 ISO 3166 codes 
for future use (or non-use as the case might be).

Robert
IAHC Member, expressing personal opinions...