Re: [dns-dir] Draft requesting reservation of special-use domain names

[Patrik Fältström <[e-mail]>]

On 28 nov 2013, at 10:46, Olaf Kolkman <[e-mail]> wrote:

> On 28 nov. 2013, at 01:57, Ralph Droms <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
>> Is there some reason to think those names might be delegated from the root?  My understanding is that the review process for name delegation would identify such names as "not to be delegated" if there is significant use now, otherwise, they are safe to delegate. 
> 
> At this moment .corp and .home are ‘on-hold’ (indefinitely?).
> 
> There is also an SSAC recommendation to have some of these strings permanently reserved, and SSAC is looking towards the IETF (correct Patrik?)

A few details here:

1. SSAC do not say exactly what strings are "high risk". .HOME and .CORP can be viewed as "easy", but what about ".MAIL" etc?

2. SSAC do say that "not delegate" is not enough, we do believe some strings should explicitly be for "private use". Which matches quite well what 6762 says.

3. SSAC could have directly pointed at the Appendix G, if it was clear that that was normative, and so could ICANN. But what I heard from at least one person cc:ed is that that is _not_ normative.

Question: Can IESG/IAB make a decision on the appendix "due to widespread use, misunderstanding and unclear situations etc etc we do believe those strings should not be allocated as TLDs"?

Can IESG/IAB even say yes/no to such a question without an appeal?

Is an I-D and RFC needed that clarifies status of Appendix G?

I.e. I think some IETF action is needed. Having ICANN do "too much" instead of referring to IETF -- specifically if we go down the path of "defining some strings to be TLDs for private use" -- would be dangerous.

I think personally IETF is the body that should say not only what subset of IP address space RIRs can allocate things out of but also what subset of the available bitstring space ICANN can use. Which IETF has done with "hostname" definition (cough, cough,...) and IDN2008.

So, $10.000 question: What is the path forward for "allocation of some strings for private use"?

Do IETF need a formal question from ICANN? Would that really help?

   Patrik