Re: An Open Letter to the IAHC

["David R. Conrad" <davidc@apnic.net>]

Kevin,

>ISO TLDs are NOT given to the governments, they are given out.....well I am
>not sure I know how they are given out. 

See RFC 1591.

>But remember, they are mostly given
>to whomever asks for them. First. Period. 

No.  If I (located in Tokyo) were to request the .MM domain with no
relationship with anyone in Myanmar, I would be refused.  Further, if
multiple competing organizations request a domain within a short
period of time, the IANA is likely to request the organizations work
together to come up with a single unified entity willing to act as the
registrar for the TLD.  It is not strictly first come-first served.

>I would like to have time to survey the registration process for all TLDs,
>but no time. I was recently asked by Sun to register sun.xx in various
>countries. 

I believe most TLDs have 2nd levels that would not permit this (e.g., in
Japan, they use .co.jp as the equivalent of .COM, in NZ it's .com.nz, etc),
but perhaps that was just shorthand...

>None of these registries for ISO TLDs were run by a government.
>Most governments don't know that they have been delegated a registry.

It is quite rare (in my experience) for the TLD to be delegated
directly to a governmental agency.  In some cases, governmental
agencies have inherited the TLD when the original delegatees (if
that's a word) got tired of shouldering the burden alone...

Regards,
-drc