Re: [DNSOP] My "toxic" remark at the mic today

["Patrik Fältström " <[e-mail]>]

On 5 Nov 2015, at 5:47, Andrew Sullivan wrote:

> Is
> there a document that says not to put such a record into the root,
> however?  If not, why should DNSOP say anything about this?  It seems
> like a job for SSAC to me.

SSAC wrote about DNAME in March 2006 in SAC-009 ("Alternative TLD Name Systems and Roots: Conflict, Control and Consequences"):

> Recommendation (1): ICANN and the community at large should take appropriate measures to ensure that a thorough analysis of two candidate methods for encoding strings in TLD labels - DNAME Equivalence Mappings and use of IDNA encodings – is concluded quickly. Based on the conclusions and recommendations of parties responsible for this analysis, ICANN should adopt the preferred method.

Unfortunately I can not remind myself that recommendation has been followed...

On top of this,  SAC-053 ("SSAC Report on Dotless Domains") where SSAC have the following recommendation:

> Recommendation: Dotless domains will not be universally reachable and the SSAC recommends strongly against their use. As a result, the SSAC also recommends that the use of DNS resource records such as A, AAAA, and MX in the apex of a Top- Level Domain (TLD) be contractually prohibited where appropriate and strongly discouraged in all cases.

Let me remind people SSAC recommendations do only have weight based on the quality of the report itself. There is no requirement for anyone to follow the recommendations. That said, ICANN Board must take SSAC (and other ICANN AC) advisories and recommendations into account, i.e. at least explain why the advice was not followed.

   Patrik Fältström
   SSAC Chair