The Freename Forum

In the midst of global geopolitical disputes, .su, the former country code of the Soviet Union, made headlines. “ICANN moves to retire Soviet-era .SU country domain name” reported renowned domain blogger Andrew Allemann, referring to a letter from the Public Technical Identifiers (PTI) department of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) dated February 6, 2025, in which ICANN announced that it would send a ‘Notice of Removal’ to the .su registry Russian Institute for Development of Public Networks (ROSNIIROS) on February 13, 2025, thus initiating the five-year final phase of .su. However, the new ICANN CEO Kurtis Lindqvist has since denied the announcement: “ICANN has been in discussions with the managers of .su regarding retirement of the ccTLD for many, many years. There has not been sent a formal notice of removal to the ccTLD manager and no timeline for sending one, discussions will be keep on going and following the ccNSO retirement policy.” For the US-based ICANN, the discussion comes at an inopportune time, as it does not want to antagonize either the political leadership under Donald Trump or Russia. From a strictly regulatory point of view, however, the situation is clear: “It is correct that the Soviet Union is no longer assigned in the ISO 3166-1 standard and therefore is no longer considered eligible for a ccTLD,” Maarten Botterman, then Chairman of the ICANN Board of Directors, announced back in 2022.

Source: https://domainincite.com/30895-no-timel ... om-the-dns