back to article The internet's very own Muslim ban continues: DNS overlord insists it can freeze dot-words

Internet overseer ICANN has insisted it has the authority to maintain a six-year online Muslim ban, despite being told otherwise by its own independent oversight panel. In a letter sent to the Turkish organization that applied for the rights to operate the .islam and .halal generic top-level domain names back in 2012, ICANN's …

  1. veti Silver badge

    Dear ICANN,

    Don't create a new TLD unless it is 100% crystal clear from the get-go, beyond any question of debate, who it should belong to, and what authority should get to say who administers it.

    This isn't hard. National TLDs are administered by an agency nominated by their respective governments. Similarly I have no objection to creating ".disney' or '.pepsi' if you really must, though I think it's a shocking waste of everyone's time.

    But taking a regular word with no specific trademark attachment and making it into a TLD? Just don't fucking do it. And revoke the ones you've already done, starting with ".info'. We won't miss them.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Dear ICANN,

      "But taking a regular word with no specific trademark attachment and making it into a TLD? |""

      Like .amazon? I agree with the sentiment though!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Dear ICANN,

        Why would Disney corporation be entitled to .disney? There are people with that last name who might have a stake in that, I would think. I suppose if it comes down to "who is willing to pay" then the six digit fees for creating a new TLD would tend to guarantee it is the mouse house that gets it but is that how we want to do things?

        A TLD is effectively a worldwide trademark for a name covering EVERY line of business. Apple had to pay Apple Records to get involved in the music business, but there are enough other businesses named Apple so they truly never get "clean title" to a .apple domain. Heck even NYC might have wished to be https://big.apple!

        Only companies with totally made up names that were trademarked early on, like say Facebook, would be eligible for TLDs. The only way the rest could get involved would be if you simply make it an auction, but did we want the company with the deepest pockets (at the time, because Apple may be huge now but 20 years ago many thought they wouldn't survive to see Y2K) to get the TLD?

    2. Version 1.0 Silver badge

      Re: Dear ICANN,

      I have no problem with new TLDs ... it makes my job on the mail server so much easier, I can just blacklist *.junk_tld domains and speed up the mail server by eliminating the junk TLDs from spam processing. Note, I've nothing against .islam or .halal, new TLDs are only be added to the junk_tld list when spam starts arriving.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Dear ICANN,

        I can just blacklist *.junk_tld domains and speed up the mail server by eliminating the junk TLDs from spam processing.

        I do this. It did land me in trouble when I blacklisted .in.

        How was I to know that one of my users was Indian?

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Dear ICANN,

      Who do you think you are?

      .god ???

    4. DJSpuddyLizard

      Re: Dear ICANN,

      Don't create a new TLD unless it is 100% crystal clear from the get-go, beyond any question of debate, who it should belong to.....

      Similarly I have no objection to creating ".disney' or '.pepsi' if you really must, though I think it's a shocking waste of everyone's time.

      You're actually contradicting yourself.

      Have you ever visited Nissan.com ? There's an interesting tale....

  2. Mark 85

    Might the "hold" (for lack of a better word) be due to the two factions within Islam? They don't really get along and by dragging it's feet, ICANN might be trying to avoid a legal and public nightmare along with personal pain as the fanatics within these groups prove at the least, weekly. If governments are involved and they happen to be from the Middle East, then this might be the reasoning.

    The lace of transparency in this seems to suggest there's more to them dragging their feet then meets they eye.

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      ICANN created the problem

      To line their own pockets.

      They can damn well fix it, at the personal expense of the Board.

      If they keep messing about like this then it won't be too long before the Internet routes around ICANN.

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: ICANN created the problem

        Indeed. As I recall, it went something like this:

        ICANN: We think we'd like to let people create all sorts of new gTLDs.

        Techies: No, that's stupid. Don't do that.

        ICANN: We're going to do it.

        Techies: Weren't you listening? We said it's a terrible idea. Here are many reasons why you should throw this plan in a pit and set it alight.

        ICANN: Hooray! In response to overwhelming demand, we are now going to let anyone create a new gTLD.

        ICANN: ... oh, except for all the ones we arbitrarily won't allow.

        ICANN (subsequently): Jeez, what a horrible mess. Who could have imagined that new gTLDs would create problems? Why did no one warn us of this?

        1. Robert Helpmann??
          Unhappy

          Re: ICANN created the problem

          ...ICANN (subsequently): Jeez, what a horrible mess. Who could have imagined that new gTLDs would create problems? Why did no one warn us of this?

          You left off the part where ICANN go on to repeat the same mistakes over and over again because really, why should they care?

        2. Mark 85

          Re: ICANN created the problem

          ICANN (subsequently): Jeez, what a horrible mess. Who could have imagined that new gTLDs would create problems? Why did no one warn us of this?

          Add to this: "Oh wait.. it's the techies fault."

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The idea of the Ottoman Empire Mark II bidding for .islam is LOL crazy. I'd rather see the Saudis get it than them, but it really ought to go to the Indonesians by weight of numbers. But as noted below, there's Sunni, Shia, Ismaili, Twelvers, and let's not forget the Sufis, who brought Islam to India and Indonesia, and have been cheerfully murdered as heretics by all latecomers since then.

      Mebbe copy the Americans with something like "Icann shall make no gTLD respecting an establishment of religion, ..." ?

      1. Richard 12 Silver badge

        Too late

        They already gave out .bible, .catholic and .church - despite objections.

        Strange how there don't appear to be any non-christian gtlds.

        1. steelpillow Silver badge

          Re: Too late

          "They already gave out .bible, .catholic and .church - despite objections."

          OTOH they have not given out .christ, .christian or .christianity.

          If somebody applied for .koran, .shia or .mosque would they approve those?

          This "prejudice" cry seems a tad lacking in supporting evidence.

          Keep that banhammer swingin' ICANN, and keep poking those tickbox merchants 'til they change the rules.

        2. Jonathan Richards 1
          Go

          Re: Too late

          > non-christian gtlds

          Norway and the former Viking thralldoms should totally go for .asgard.

        3. Maelstorm Bronze badge

          Re: Too late

          Well, the Bible is a real book (As is the Koran and the Torah), and churches are a real place (as is mosques and synagogues). However, Christianity is a religion, and so is Islam and Catholic. I can see that .catholic is a strange one because that religion is centered around what the Vatican (which is a separate country in and of itself) says and does. This is similar to .judaism because Israel is the only Jewish theocracy in the world that I'm aware of.

          1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

            Re: Too late

            "I can see that .catholic is a strange one because that religion is centered around what the Vatican (which is a separate country in and of itself) says and does. "

            Nit-pick: what we in the West usually refer to as the orthodox church actually lays claim to being the catholic church. The word just means universal and consequently both sides of the Great Schism believe they are the *legitimate* claimants. This is also why the term /Roman/ Catholic exists.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Too late

            Bit far fetched to call Israel a theocracy.

        4. bombastic bob Silver badge
          Devil

          Re: Too late

          I'm sure there are other religion-based TLDs out there. I found '.guru' and '.yoga' but most likely they're not in reference to eastern religions at all.

          One reference suggested 10 TLD's were "religious" but I didn't want to wait for their slow scripted site.

          The place I searched was gandi.net but they don't have EVERY TLD (just the vast majority of 'em from what I can tell). Notably did NOT find '.christ' or '.zen' or '.buddha' or '.hindu' or anything similar.

          But as for NOT registering '.islam' etc.: if terrorists and/or jihadists were to get '.islam' TLDs wouldn't it make it easier to TRACK them? Seriously someone isn't thinking very well...

          /me points out that if believers in Islam use '.church' it would be just as applicable as a christian religion. And I saw several TLDs listed in foreign lingos and so I couldn't read 'em, so maybe they're at least slightly religious? Anyway, I think ICANN wanted to avoid this entire thing, but I say open the gates and let it all happen, equally.

    3. This post has been deleted by its author

    4. Jonathan Richards 1

      OT

      +1 upvote for the felicitous use of "lace of transparency". ICANN specializes in very closely worked lace...

  3. Frumious Bandersnatch

    Yes, it's fucking political!

    (everything's political)

  4. JohnFen

    What? ICANN is an ongoing train wreck?

    What a shocker.

    On the plus side, at least this is about gTLDs. Since I ignore their existence entirely and avoid going to such domains, this is one fight I don't have to lose any sleep over.

  5. marclouis

    yes, political, and what a can of worms? shia and sunni can't agree on much, and being so sensitive, i'll be buying pork.halal just for the lulz, I expect porn. will already be taken :)

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      So you can have sunni.islam, shia.islam and ismail.islam (and nation.of. ) each run by their own lot

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        What'll happen is they'll each be run by the other lot, and they'll post Truthy News™. Or Alex Jones will get them.

        And that is why gTLDs are crap.

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        "and nation.of. "

        Point of information. That would just be a subdomain of of.islam

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          shia.islam

          If you're going to relegate them to a subdomain, why have .islam at all? They can be shia.com or shia.org or shia.ir already.

          They would want .islam (as would the Sunnis) because they think they are the true Muslims, and the others are heretics, or at least misguided.

          Imagine if someone wanted to create a .christianity TLD. Who gets control of it, the born agains, the Presbyterians, the Lutherans? I guess the Catholics are out of the running for .christianity since they already have their own - but at least since they all recognize the Pope there's a central authority they'd agree is justified in controlling stuff like a .catholic TLD. There's no central authority over Islam any more than there's a central authority over Christianity.

          So I think ICANN is justified here - better to keep it "on hold" indefinitely since there's no right decision about who gets .islam.

          1. Tom 38

            Re: shia.islam

            Imagine if someone wanted to create a .christianity TLD.

            Well, they had no problem approving .church, .bible, .catholic, .faith and .kosher ...

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            "Who gets control of it"

            How US centric - although in the US you have religions and sects for any taste and inclinations - what about the various Orthodox churches? Do you believe Russia would have nothing to say about it? And do you believe Catholics would leave others take control of it, even if they already have their own, when they developed the "credo" to assert they are the only good ones? And the list is still not exhaustive, I'm afraid.

            Any religion old enough will incur in the same issues, I'm afraid...

            ICANN created a minefield with the new TLDs... and something will explode (figuratively, I hope) under their assess...

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: "Who gets control of it"

              I didn't intend an exhaustive list, I'm aware there are various Orthodox flavors of Christianity, the Church of England, and so forth. Pretty sure all Catholics will submit to the authority of the Vatican though, or by definition they are no longer members of the Catholic church. That's the difference between .catholic and .christianity and .islam.

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: shia.islam

            Give it to the New Zealanders by mistake when they ask for

            .islamb

        2. Alistair
          Windows

          "That would just be a subdomain of of.islam"

          Wait, don't you mean of ofglen?

          Oh, sorry, wrong religion.

        3. Jamie Jones Silver badge
          Happy

          Point of information. That would just be a subdomain of of.islam

          If you're going to be pedantic... Not necessarily.

          Whilst subdomains are split on "." , the reverse isn't necessarily true: "." does not necessarily mean a subdomain split.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "So you can have"...

        I wish it could be so simple... I'm afraid each of them believe to be the true and only one... and there could be even internal fights for controlling who controls what.

        It happened in the past with other religions, including Christianity, as well, and may not be over yet, albeit less bloody.

        The fact that other Middle East countries objected about a registrar in Turkey managing it tells a lot about it.

        ICANN may deserve a lot of troubles - but I wouldn't really like to be the one who have to manage issues like this.

  6. ratfox
    Meh

    "We want more money"

    I don't think there is any process issue that icann cannot address, given enough brown envelopes.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Mushroom

      Re: "We want more money"

      I'm afraid in this case some envelopes could be, ehm, "very energetic".... --->

  7. Neoc

    Playing with fire

    Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I can tell ICANN has power only because the rest of the world allows them to. What is to stop engineers around the world to tell ICANN to go jump off a roof and set up a new gTLD system?

    After all: "the internet re-routes around what it perceives as damage"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Playing with fire

      Nothing, except for the fact that you could never get "engineers around the world" to agree on one single new gTLD system and who runs it. ICANN is a terrible solution, but it may be the least worse of the possible alternatives.

      If engineers around the world bypassed ICANN, we'd have a dozen different gTLD systems within a year and since they'd all still have to point to ICANN roots for .com, .net, .org and country specific TLDs they'd be the lowest common denominator so that's all anyone would use. Which defeats the purpose of this hypothetical engineer led revolt against ICANN...

      1. Justicesays

        Re: Playing with fire

        "since they'd all still have to point to ICANN roots for .com, .net, .org and country specific TLDs they'd be the lowest common denominator so that's all anyone would use"

        Sound good to me!

      2. Ken Hagan Gold badge

        Re: Playing with fire

        "since they'd all still have to point to ICANN roots for .com, .net, .org and country specific TLDs they'd be the lowest common denominator so that's all anyone would use. Which defeats the purpose of this hypothetical engineer led revolt against ICANN..."

        On the contrary, I rather took this to be the point of the exercise. But on the other hand, DNS is a hierarchical system, so these hypothetical engineers can already configure their own systems to drop all the gTLDs on the floor.

      3. JohnFen

        Re: Playing with fire

        "ICANN is a terrible solution, but it may be the least worse of the possible alternatives"

        The problem that gTLDs solves is that ICANN wants to generate more revenue. If we did away with the idea entirely, the internet would be better off.

      4. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Devil

        Re: Playing with fire

        wasn't that already done (sorta) with .onion ?

    2. Jellied Eel Silver badge

      Re: Playing with fire

      What is to stop engineers around the world to tell ICANN to go jump off a roof and set up a new gTLD system?

      Not a lot, just some complexity. And the return of balkanisation. It's been done before with several alt.roots and resulted in RFC2826 explaining why it's a Bad Thing!. Especially for ICANN and their revenue streams. It's also a bit of a deja vu because the alt.roots were created to expand on the original trinity+country TLDs.

      All it needs is the creation of non-authoritative (in an ICANN sense) records that show .islam delegated to a DNS server operated by the alt.root. That's made easier where countries (eg Saudi) that attempt to restrict/intercept/block unwanted content. So Saudi could create a Sunni .islam and direct DNS requests to that. Iran could do the same for a Shia version. Just modify named.root and named.cache on official name servers and away you go.

      If people still want to use ICANN-approved DNS, unless DNS is blocked/redirected they could choose diffferent DNS servers.. But that also brings up some civil liberties/human rights risks, ie given some Muslims view others as heretics, being able to monitor access to heretical sites could be a Bad Thing.

      It's also where ICANN's actions may encourage balkanisation. The whole DNS structure has pretty much relied on trust for authority and delegation, and if they lose that trust, then they'll lose control.

      1. JohnFen

        Re: Playing with fire

        "And the return of balkanisation."

        I've pretty much reached the point where balkanization isn't the boogyman that it used to be. It's not wonderful, but we're increasingly accepting quite a lot that's worse.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Playing with fire

          I've pretty much reached the point where balkanization isn't the boogyman that it used to be. It's not wonderful, but we're increasingly accepting quite a lot that's worse.

          The Titanic, with almost no watertight bulkheads, was wonderfully free in terms of passenger movement....

          A lifeboat is an inferior means of transport to almost all others...

          ...except a sinking ship.

          What was it they said in the early days of HiFi as loudspeakers and amplifiers got better and better high frequency response?

          "The more you open the door, the more the dirt flies in"

          The globalists just loved the internet, until it stated transmitting messages that they did not control.

          I think that techies should control the Internet and politicians should be given a walled garden.

          Perhaps the TLD .CNUTS would be appropriate.

          1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
            Joke

            Re: Playing with fire

            Perhaps the TLD .CNUTS would be appropriate.

            What have Danish kings got to do with it?

          2. JohnFen

            Re: Playing with fire

            I honestly don't understand the point you're making here, but let me try to clarify what I said.

            I'm not in favor of balkanization. However, there are a lot of other things that are happening with the internet that I'm equally opposed to, and can see that there's a nonzero chance that balkanization could actually become the lesser evil. I hope that day never comes, but I'm not terribly optimistic about that at the moment.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Playing with fire

      "What is to stop engineers around the world to tell ICANN to go jump off a roof and set up a new gTLD system?"

      DNSSEC.

    4. Edward Clarke

      Re: Playing with fire

      The organization should deal with the root domain servers directly and give up on ICANN. I would suggest dealing with the Wide Project and JPRS to start with. These two run the M root server and "endeavors to coordinate operational service" with the others. That does not look like an absolute rule to me though. The next organization to deal with is RIPE NCC - which runs the K root.

      None of these are under the control of ICANN. Furthermore "Anyone may apply to host a K-root node. Get details on the expansion plan and application process."...

  8. Mr Dogshit

    Inshallah, brother.

  9. MNGrrrl
    Mushroom

    DNS Terror

    It's not Muslims terrorizing the internet -- it's these ass hats. Countries should just start their own DNS servers and fracture the root server system. Basically cut the head off the snake. Of course, it'll leave the internet in ruins but it's already a dumpster fire thanks to these clowns.

    ICANN is just another example of how the United States refuses to play nice with the rest of the world. I am ashamed of my country's conduct, on- and offline. I'm totally serious -- Europe should shove their collective foot right up the ass of our tech companies, along with these kinds of organizations that project US policy while claiming to be neutral.

    1. Wolfclaw

      Re: DNS Terror

      It's already started,Europe has lost patience with the USA over how it handles data, spies on us (allies) and how big US Corps play fas and loose with tax and legal laws.

      I can see a day when each region has a walled internet, with controlled gateways between each, blocking what each other don't like or don't have dat sharing agreements with.

      The big losers will be USA, Russia and China, as nobody will trust them.

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: DNS Terror

      "Countries should just start their own DNS servers and fracture the root server system."

      Not the solution. Let countries (by which I wake it you mean national governments) get involved and you'll end up handing it to the ITU. What needs to happen is for the registrars (who, I believe are supposed to be ICANN "stakeholders" but not, apparently, treated as such) to do it in a coordinated fashion. The root server has a number of mirrors around the world; all they have to do is agree to treat one of those - and has to be just one - as the new definitive server and ICANN is on a downward slide as fast as you can say "fait accompli".

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: DNS Terror

        As I posted above, you'll never get everyone to agree on a new gTLD system and who runs it. You'd end up with a balkanized system but since they'd still need to point to ICANN roots for .com, .net., .org, and CC TLDs for obvious reasons so everyone would go on using those and nothing is really changed.

  10. Guus Leeuw

    "broke"?

    Dear Journalist,

    since when is "broke" a word that can be used in the context that you used it in? "broken" is the word you were looking for.

    Dear Editor,

    please make sure to read articles before they are published, so that you can avoid bad English. This reading of articles also gives you a clear opportunity to replenish failing keyboards that, for example, lack a working "N" key...

    Best regards,

    Guus

    1. sabroni Silver badge

      Re: "broke"?

      Tips and Corrections link, to the left of the comments button at the bottom of the article. Gets things like this dealt with quicker. If that's want you want.

      1. tiggity Silver badge

        Re: "broke"?

        @sabroni

        Unfortunately tips and corrections involves sending an email (its a mailto link) which may not be possible depending on someones machine set up, or someone may not want the email address of that machine made known to the reg (e.g. if "private" address whereas signup email address used was a "public" address - i.e. one user does not want to keep private) or may be work email with strict no personal email rules

        I have no idea why the tips & corrections does not fire you to a webform....

    2. Ochib

      Re: "broke"?

      "since when is "broke" a word that can be used in the context that you used it in? "broken" is the word you were looking for."

      Broke is used by those who are truly woke

      1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

        Re: "broke"?

        "Broke is used by those who are truly woke"

        I think that was the OP's point.

    3. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: "broke"?

      since when is "broke" a word that can be used in the context that you used it in?

      Sigh. English-language prescriptivism continues to be a marvel of conjoined ignorance and certainty.

      avoid bad English

      Put the ruler down, son. "Bad English" is a figment of your imagination. While there are many possible grounds on which to reasonably critique diction and usage, your personal set of predilections is not one of them.

  11. herman
    Black Helicopters

    NSL?

    This actually reeks of a National Security Letter.

  12. EnviableOne

    ICANNy Believe they get away with this

    I wonder what would happen if .judaism was proposed or .christianity

    with .catholic and .shia already approved they really cant refuse anything .denomination

    they can't realy deny .halal as they already approved .kosher

    Someone with teeth needs to regulate ICANN, sureley as a california registered org, eithter state or fedral organisations have some jurisdiction

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well....

    ...shouldn't some of those be subdomains of .fairytale or .outmodedconstruct or .oppression or .notworthdyingfor

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Well....

      how about .semprini ?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "shouldn't some of those be subdomains of"

      All of them

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Song of the small...

    And we knew then, that the invisible barrier - that stretched from end to end, as far as our eyes could see - would never end and never vanish. At first we crimed and then we scree'd, and we cried and we screamed, for what else could we do? But as we died in our multitudes in front of the beautiful light we could not reach - we sang and made poems with our bodies, so we could be remembered, so our deeds and tiny lives meant something. We sang of the flower, of the wind and of the sun, we sang of each other, our children and the children they would never have. We sang of soaring over water, of hovering on the breeze, of alighting on the green blanket that gave us food and life. And as we sang, we died. Who would bury us now? Who would remain? Only our creator could tell us that, and He had deemed to test us first. And we had failed his glorious test.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    Objections to TLD being added to the Internet

    US-based ICANN placed the applications for .islam and .halal "on hold" in 2014 after a number of Middle Eastern governments objected to the top-level domains being added to the internet

    The Organization of Islamic Cooperation has repeated its objection to the gTLDs .islam and .halal ever seeing the light of day.”

    1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

      Re: Objections to TLD being added to the Internet

      That again is where ICANN screwed up. Where the proposed gTLD is generic but contentious, it shouldn't just be flogged off to the highest bidder. If the OIC is a respected and trusted muti-faith Islamic organisation, they would seem a far better custodian. Same with say, .christian given there's a multitude of Christian faiths/sects.

  16. NanoMeter

    Could become popular among islam critics

    Examples: thereligionthatsucksass.islam, baconburgerrecipes.halal

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can you imagine what the rage will be when someone creates "somethingblasphemoushere.islam"?

  18. Maelstorm Bronze badge
    Boffin

    A few issues

    All that I see here are issues with no solutions. Well, maybe one...

    1. Fracturing the DNS root system is not a good idea because that is how someone from the US like me, can read and comment on these forums. It will be like the .onion TLD which was never approved but is in use on the dark web and requires a special browser to access.

    2. This issue started when ICANN was under the purview of the US-DOC. But now that they are on their own, they have gone completely out of control. If they will not follow their own bylaws, then it makes me wonder if they will follow a court order issued by a judge in a court of law. I know they probably won't if the court is in a foreign jurisdiction, but even in the US...

    3. Currently, ICANN's regulations that the registrars must follow are in direct conflict with the laws of some countries. Case in point is Germany, which puts the registrars between a rock and a hard place. Either follow your country's laws and risk your status as a registrar or follow ICANN's regulations and risk getting sanctioned by your country's legal system.

    4. The fact that this as been going on for six years already makes me ask the question Why? According to the article, they are disobeying their own bylaws, which a judge in the US should be able to make them follow with a court order. This just demonstrates the abuse of power they are committing since they are no longer under the purview of the US Government.

    In the past, I was against making internet governance part of the UN-ITU. However, seeing how ICANN has been abusing their authority lately, that may not be such a bad idea considering that every man, woman, and child is a stakeholder in the global internet which crosses international borders.

    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: A few issues

      "Either follow your country's laws and risk your status as a registrar or follow ICANN's regulations and risk getting sanctioned by your country's legal system."

      Well I'm not sure I ever followed the argument here. It seemed perfectly plain to me that the ccTLD belongs to the local government, not ICANN, and that if ICANN wanted *any* influence over how it was run then they would have to have a legal presence in the country concerned, at which point they are subject to local law.

      Obviously it is open to ICANN to simply punt and give up on a ccTLD. I think you'd have to say they've done that in a fair number of cases. (Can you really see ICANN dictating policy to China, Iran, Russia or North Korea?) The much-feared balkanisation of the internet has already happened and the sky remains defiantly above our heads because ICANN don't control the technical standards and those are what matters.

      1. Jamie Jones Silver badge

        Re: A few issues

        It's not the country domains that were the issue - it's about someone in Europe registering a .com/.org/.net etc - Nominet has not published names and addresses of individuals on whois for .uk domains for many years before GDPR. ICANN had no fight there.

  19. Red Bren
    Facepalm

    How many gTLDs do we need?

    Surely the main* point of TLDs is to break up and delegate the work of network addressing? As more TLDs are created, doesn't that slow everything down? I'd appreciate if someone can point out the flaw in my logic isn't it more efficient to for root DNS servers to hand off requests to the approprate server for the domain, who in turn hand off to the authoritative server for the subdomain? The more TLDs there are, the more work for the root servers to track down the authority to delegate to. Where do we stop? Do we all get our own TLD?

    * Some people seem to think the main point of TLDs is to keep inventing new ones, milking a constant stream of revenue from organisations who have a trademark to protect, or a desire to protect their customers from legitimate sounding impersonators. I couldn't possibly comment...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How many gTLDs do we need?

      "The more TLDs there are, the more work for the root servers to track down the authority to delegate to."

      Not really. The algorithms to look up values for a given key don't care how many entries their hash lists or binary trees have. Root- and TLD-NS run high-performance software optimized for just this case. Most requests to root NS are for nonexistent junk domains anyway.

      Recursive resolvers might need a few more bytes to cache additional TLD NS entries but there's really no argument to make that new gTLDs would slow down DNS in general.

      1. Red Bren
        Pint

        Re: How many gTLDs do we need?

        Thanks @AC

  20. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "being used in ways the imams can't control"

      I guess that's not the problem - a Turkish company proposed it, and I'm sure no abuses like yours would be ever allowed, or heads will fall (figuratively, at least).

      Try with .catholic, which is managed by the Vatican.

      The issue other Muslim countries are afraid of is Turkey, and thereby its version of Islam, would try to use it for their own aims, maybe trying to keep out everyone who's not aligned with them.

  21. Claptrap314 Silver badge

    The pig in the room?

    The issuance of .catholic and .kosher make it clear that ICANN isn't the least bit concerned about bias and the like. I can very much believe that they ARE concerned about starting a war that is likely to extend to "highly energetic" packages at their personal doorsteps.

    ICANN might be a perfect showcase for almost everything that can go wrong in an organization of its sort, but the demonstrated danger of making a ruling on these two gTLDs makes me suspect that there is actually useful intelligence behind their actions. Especially when you consider that a "delayed" application is a source of ongoing revenue, while a permanently denied one is not. :/

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The Internet was designed to survive nuclear war

    But not politicians

    Sigh.

    Farewell Internet, I knew thee well..

    $dig SOA globaljihad.islam

    dig v7 (multiroot)

    checking ICANN

    checking European Union of confederated name servers

    checking Freespace.Russia,DNS

    checking United ASEAN DNS

    checking DARKNET,ONION

    Checking Chinese walled garden of wonderfulness

    Checking United Islamic Brotherhood of Terror

    ...one result found

    Checking CIA.DNS

    ...one result found

  23. This post has been deleted by its author

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