New Policies for Old Domains

CNN reports that ICANN has officially removed the domain extension “.um” (for US minor outlying islands) from the current list of domains available for registration, shortening the list from 265 to 264. The article goes on to suggest that the extension “.su” (for Soviet Union) is next on the chopping block.

The major difference here, however, is that .um was hardly used whereas .su has approximately 8,000 domains registered under it according to an article published by Mosnews last November. According to Mosnews there are many pro-Kremlin groups poised to take legal action against ICANN:

One of those is the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi, whose website is registered with the .su suffix. ?Should the domain be eliminated our lawyers will examine the issue and will stand up for the movement?s rights in court,? Nashi spokesman Robert Shlegel told Kommersant.

Another extension that is under review is “.yu” which represents the former Yugoslavia nation – Yugoslavia became Serbia and Montenegro in early 2003. Then again this is nothing new as the domain industry has been debating about the future of .yu for almost four years now. SFGate reports that Serbia and Montenegro have adpoted their own extensions (.rs and .me respectively); however, there are still millions of Google results for .su and .yu extensions.

It’s good that ICANN is moving forward by eliminating the use of outdated domain names, but if an extension is still being used should they let it remain despite the fact that the country for which it was created no longer exists? To sum it up, I’ll leave you with a relevant (and fantastically dorky) quote posted by mfh on Slashdot.org:

Obi-Wan: I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.

The destruction of a domain that is of no use, is nothing to be upset about. But what happens when this motion is repeated on a larger scale when not everyone is in agreement?