Hi Gopal, IMO your analysis of scope is largely correct with one, possibly-important, exception You wrote: #4. ICANN ensures minimum standards compliance from the domain name registrars. The accreditation agreement specifies the rules and procedures applicable to the provision of Registrar Services I would append to the first sentence of that "... the domain registrars *over which it has authority".* ICANN has oversight on most top-level domains and develops regulations (in the form of contract terms) for the registries and registrars that use those top-level domains. However, there are quite a few top-level domains in the DNS over which it has zero authority. A non-exhaustive list of examples includes: - "Country code" domains such as .de, .jp, .in and most other two-letter top-level domains (some of which -- such as .ly .tv and others -- compete directly and openly with ICANN-overseen domains but don't need to have the same governance or policies). It should be noted that some of these country-code registries are excellent and exceed ICANN standards, and many country code registries work with ICANN (voluntarily) through the ccNSO - Historical top-level domains such as that are guided by mechanisms mostly independent of ICANN's (and generally do not work through registrar networks). There is only one country in the world that can use .gov or .mil or .edu 🙂, The only one of these applicable outside the US is .int and its membership is restricted to UN-treaty organizations. - Other special cases such as the .onion pseudo-domains that was defined by IETF - Non-DNS clones that are independently created, such as the various alternate root systems that have come and gone and the alleged blockchain-based threat that started this discussion I have long maintained that it has been a long-shirked responsibility of ICANN to teach the public that not all domains are its responsibility/fault, and that (for instance) buying/using a domain in .co is not the same as one in .com. ALAC should be pushing such public-facing campaigns -- after all, nobody else in ICANN will -- but it has yet to discover a champion within it for this kind of thing. Cheers, Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch / @el56