[governance] UN controls the country code part of the Internet root, not US

[Norbert Bollow]

Mawaki Chango <kichango at gmail.com> wrote:

> The reasoning by which anyone would get to the conclusion that UN
> controls ccTLDs in the DNS root because they have had a process (in
> place well before the Internet) to decide on two-letter codes to
> represent geographical entities for their own purposes different from
> the DNS management is beyond my thinking ability. Someone in the
> early Internet technical community (Jon Postel, if my information is
> correct) decided to rely on that list for the DNS purposes without
> the UN playing any deliberate role in that specific decision. In my
> realm of rationality, the UN cannot bear any responsibility for any
> consequence that might ensue from that specific decision concerning
> the DNS.

One significant aspect to keep in mind in this context is that the UN
does not control the ISO 3166 standard directly; the UN only provides
information (about new countries and no longer existing countries and
changes to the names of countries) to the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency
(ISO 3166 MA), which is the committee that is managing the ISO 3166
standard. It is a special kind of committee, different from the usual
kind of standardization committee.

ISO 3166 MA has ten members; ICANN is one of the entities delegating a
representative to this committee.

For further details see
http://www.icann.org/en/resources/policy/background/icann-iso-3166

Greetings,
Norbert

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