The ccNSO membership supports the ccNSO Council's recommendation to adopt the proposed policy on the retirement of ccTLDs.

Date
29 July 2021

The ccPDP3-retirement vote is now closed. This is to inform you about the results and to thank those who voted. This vote was to determine whether the ccNSO membership supports the ccNSO Council's recommendation to adopt the proposed policy on the retirement of ccTLDs. Voting closed on Wednesday, 28 July 2021 (23:59 UTC).

Vote Results

At the closure of the vote, 100 ccNSO members out of 172 (58 %) casted their votes:

Total Ballots Cast (including duplicates): 107
Ballots Counted (excluding duplicates): 100
Voters Who Haven't Voted: 72

94 voters supported the ccNSO Council's recommendation to adopt the proposed policy on the retirement of ccTLDs, and 6 voters did not support the recommendation.

Next Steps

A report on the voting will be sent to the Issue Manager. The report will be included in the Draft Board Report, which - after approval by the ccNSO Councill - will be submitted to the ICANN Board of Directors, as per Annex B, section 14 of the ICANN Bylaws.

FAQ

FAQ#1.
What was this vote about?

To determine whether the ccNSO Community supports the proposed policy on the retirement of ccTLDs

FAQ#2.
Who was eligible to vote?

The ballots were sent to the e-mail address of the primary contacts of each ccNSO Member.

FAQ#3.
When did the voting close?

The election is now closed. Voting ended 28 July 2021, at 23:59 UTC

FAQ#4.
What is the policy about?

  1. The trigger event for a ccTLD retirement process. The retirement process starts with the removal of a country code from the ISO3166-1 list of country names. For exceptionally reserved domain names, the trigger event is the fact that the ISO Maintenance Agency makes changes to the reserved 2-letter codes. For IDN ccTLDs, the trigger event will be identified under the ccNSO policy on the (de)selection of IDN ccTLD strings (ccPDP4).

    Note:

    • the trigger is the removal of a country code, not the country code Top Level Domain
    • RFC1591: IANA (the IANA Functions Operator) is not in the business of determining what is and what is not a country. ISO has a process to determine this.
  2. Impact of the trigger event on the Root Zone Database. Once a country code is removed from the ISO3166-1 list, the ccTLD MUST be removed from the DNS rootzone database. The rationale for this is that the link between the ISO3166-list and the list of ccTLDs should be maintained. Also, the ISO Maintenance Agency should be able to assign a 2-letter code to a new Territory.
  3. ccTLD retirement process. Once there is a trigger event, the IANA Functions Operator sends a notice of retirement to the ccTLD Manager, with an invitation to discuss a retirement plan. The removal of the ccTLD from the root zone is foreseen to happen 5 years after the retirement notice. The ccTLD manager - together with PTI - can potentially agree to extend this deadline, with an additional 5 years.

FAQ#5.
Does this policy apply to all ccTLDs?

The policy is directed at ICANN, and is within scope of the ccNSO policy development process, as stated in Annex C of the ICANN Bylaws.

FAQ#6.

Where can I read more?