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ICANN AND ccTLDS IN TECHNICAL
30th September, 2002
The Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries (Centr) has issued fresh comments on ICANN's Zone Access Policy. The policy seeks access for the California-based not-for-profit corporation to domain name configuration files contained on the systems of country code operators. Centr's response indicates that the 36-strong association of country code domain name administrators continues to resist ICANN's attempts to obtain this data.
At the root of this issue is ICANN's policy ICP-1 which requires countries to allow ICANN, in exercise of the IANA technical co-ordination function, to download country code zone files. These files hold details of the domain names registered in the second level including the addresses of the nameservers, the computers assigned to respond for each name. Centr says that ICP-1 does not have the approval of the Internet community and that there is no sound reason for ICANN to have access to the files.
Matters came to a head in May 2002 when a European Internet provider, KPNQwest, hit financial difficulties. Some of the country code operators used a backup or secondary name server operated by KPNQwest and given its impending problems they decided to move or 'redelegate' elsewhere. The operators say that when they asked IANA to assist in a redelegation their requests were not processed unless they consented to ICANN's zone file transfer policy. Centr has previously suggested that this action potentially threatened Internet stability.
The latest version of the dispute is found in an IANA frequently asked questions document posted on 5th September 2002 which is the subject of Centr's recent comments. Centr argues that ICANN has not stated what tests it wants to carry out to the zone files. Instead, it has given two examples, each of which Centr dismisses as of no importance. The first example is a requirement to check that every second level domain name is assigned to at least two working nameservers. Centr states that this degree of checking goes beyond ICANN's mandate and does not take into account certain modern technical practices.
More at: http://www.demys.net/news/02_sep_30_centr.htm
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