Hi all! ICANN is behind us and I thought I should share some feelings I have about the situation we are at with the topics this WG was convened for. Firstly I must apologize for not being in Helsinki, but I kept my eye on things over the amazing interweb. First of all does anyone else have a feeling that this WG is becoming redundant or already is? No-one seems to expect anything from it any more. Shouldn’t we do something about it? Looking at the facts – gNSO wants the 3 letter codes without restrictions for business, GAC wants the codes protected and leave the decision about the codes as souvern right of the respective country. CcNSO sadly cannot decide. So ccwg seems to be the correct way of trying to solve this by bringing the parties around a table – why do we let gNSO yap about closing this wg and all other initiatives and letting them decide what happens to the country codes and names. Sorry gNSO members for being frank! The codes and names are closed for everybody at the moment. If we cannot find a compromise this is how it stays. As a ccTLD representative I must say that this is much better outcome than no-restrictions-gTLD. But I do not want that, I think there are more countries and organisations out there feeling the same, gNSO does not want that. It seems there is potential here to find a middle ground. Compromise requires steps back from the dream from all sides. ISO 3-letter codes as gTLDs without any restrictions will not happen. ISO 3-letter codes as pure ccTLDs will probably not happen either. Lets try to find something that might happen. Another thing – having these TLD delegation rounds is stupid. So the goal should be to find a process that just works and anyone interested could apply for a TLD at any time. My proposal. 3-letters like 2-letters and country names are marking a country. ISO list is obviously not perfect, but this is what we have, the list is respected and referenced by the UN and ICANN among others so looks like a legit (widely accepted) source for country codes. Each country must have rights to decide what happens to the signs, identifiers, markers etc that represent that country. As country codes, these should also be treated as such. If the respective government explicitly gives up their privileges for the 3 letter code that code becomes gTLD and is delegated like any other. Why would a country give up its control over a TLD? Money - lets have the same rates for having the 3 letter ccTLD as there are for new gTLD. Every country/ccTLD operator/other authorized party must sign the contract with ICANN for the delegation or give up the rights for it. As long as a government has the control over a domain it should be treated as ccTLD and be regulated by the respective country. So it is this process - https://www.iana.org/help/cctld-delegation - that needs to be improved. The take-it-or-leave-it approach. What do you think? Best Regards, Timo Võhmar Arendusjuht / Head of development Eesti Interneti SA / Estonian Internet Foundation Paldiski mnt 80, 10617 Tallinn, Estonia Tel + 372 727 1004 www.internet.ee