<html><head><base href="x-msg://2362/"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>Lee,</div><div><br></div><div>On Jun 25, 2012, at 3:21 AM, Lee W McKnight wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div ocsi="0" fpstyle="1" bgcolor="#ffffff"><div style="direction: ltr; font-family: Tahoma; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 10pt; ">I believe this .iq case came in the midst of those times, when ICANN lacked - objective and transparent procedures - on what to do. Eventually, they figured out that if governments wanted their own national ccTLD, even if someone else had been running it just fine, or poorly, they had to turn it over to the government.<br><br>(Any true ICANNers can correct me if I'm wrong here.)<br></div></div></span></blockquote><div><br></div><div>While I'm not sure if I'm a "true ICANNer", I believe there remains a bit of ambiguity about what to do in a case where a government makes a request that is against the wishes of "the Internet community" of that country. Back when I was at IANA, these were the nightmare cases for IANA staff as we were obliged to abide by RFC 1591/ICP-1 that views the government as "a" (not "the") stakeholder relating to ccTLD matters while at the same time, we were obliged to abide by the "GAC Principles" that essentially says "when a government says jump, ask how high". The historical (and RFC 1591 documented) policy in these cases was for IANA to refuse to do the requested action until the parties could reach consensus. I'm sure folks can imagine governments' response to IANA's request to the government and various parties involved to "work it out amongst yourselves and come back when you've figured it out." I'm not sure of the current state of play regarding these conflicting requirements but I believe there is an effort within the ccNSO to attempt to clarify these policies.</div><div><br></div><div>However, the point is that the .IQ case (and all other cases I'm aware of) got stuck in documented IANA processes due to requirements to abide by documented consensus policies, _not_ as a result of the US government exceeding its oversight role.</div><div><br></div><div>Regards,</div><div>-drc</div><div><br></div></div></body></html>