<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">Joanna,<div><br><div><div>On Dec 13, 2013, at 2:40 AM, Joanna Kulesza <<a href="mailto:joannakulesza@gmail.com">joannakulesza@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">Just for the sake of argument: please try and locate the .eu, .ac
and .uk ccTLDs on the ISO list. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>This should probably be in a FAQ someplace. Please see the ISO-3166 Decoding Table: <a href="http://www.iso.org/iso/iso-3166-1_decoding_table" style="font-family: Monaco; font-size: 9px;">http://www.iso.org/iso/iso-3166-1_decoding_table</a></div><div><br></div><div>(BTW, pedantic phraseology nit: ccTLDs are not on the ISO list. ISO 3166/MA maintains a list of (two- and three-letter) country codes, the two-letter version of which is used to derive ccTLDs. This distinction is important as it demonstrates the chain of authority.)</div><div><br></div><div>As you can see from that table, EU, AC, UK, and a number of others are "Exceptionally Reserved" which ISO defines to mean "Code element may be used but restrictions may apply".</div><div><br></div><div><div>IANA, even before ICANN, interpreted any code that is green ("allocated") or yellow ("exceptionally reserved") in that table to be available for delegation as a ccTLD (albeit other restrictions obviously apply). Note that there are some folks who believe IANA should only use the green ("allocated") codes, but I figure that ship sailed long before ICANN was established. </div></div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">A similar argument might be made for
.tp .yu and .su yet I realize that those domains are no longer
accepting new registrations. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>TP and YU are "Transitionally Reserved" the use of which ISO-3166/MA has indicated should stop "ASAP". SU was moved from "Transitionally Reserved" to "Exceptionally Reserved" by ISO-3166/MA a few years back (a bit of a story there that I could rant on about, but that's probably a different thread). My understanding is that .SU does, in fact, accept new registrations.</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">The point is that there is some space
left for IANA/ICANN in making their decisions despite the seemingly
clear RFCs. <br></div></blockquote><div><br></div>With regards to what defines a ccTLD, not so much. </div><div><br></div><div>Regards,</div><div>-drc</div><div><br></div></div></body></html>