Hi all,

I'm surprised that nobody -- here or in the mainstream media -- has connected the dots.

There is significant global chatter about one high-profile target of recent American tariffs, "Heard Island and McDonald Islands", inhabited only by penguins. While the memes and jokes resulting from this inclusion write themselves, one might ask: how did this Australian territory get included? Likewise, how did the tiny islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon off the coast of Newfoundland, part of France and thus the EU, get their own designation (and tariffs more than double those of the EU)? Numerous non-sovereign territories were listed.

Why? Even though they are not countries, all of these listings have their own country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs in ICANN lingo). For Heard Island and McDonald Islands it's .hm which is not even used by the islands' administration (they use Antarctica .aq). I am not aware of any .hm domains in use by penguins, but any person in the world can have one for a flat $35/year -- not sure if these are resold by any ICANN registrars. Likewise St. Pierre and Miquelon's TLD is .pm, logically administered by AFNIC so it is a European domain even though it's physically in North America. This is similar to French Guiana (.gf) which is in South America, part of the EU, but subject to a LOWER US tariff rate than the EU.

Perhaps it is the incorrect characterization of these domains as "country codes" that encouraged the US administration to just go down the list and assign tariff rates to (nearly) everything using its impeccably accurate trade-imbalance formula. I think the term "4-D chess" has been used to describe the strategy. It's certainly beyond me.

Still, I wonder how folks in domain-name land feel about one of its primary resources being used this way. Should the IANA database come with a disclaimer that not all "country codes" are, indeed, countries? Is it misnamed, and, in this instance, is it being used in a way that will bring it disrepute?

I look forward to the ccNSO's statement of grave concern in response to ALAC queries.