Mutiny At Icann Countries Consider The Snub

Administrators of country code domains voted unanimously last week to look at moving to root nameservers not controlled by ICANN.

The vote, which took place at the ICANN meetings in California, establishes a working group to investigate the possibilities.

The domain name system (DNS) is a heirarchy of delegated control. The root servers (the top of the heirarchy) are presently controlled by ICANN, giving the organisation ultimate control over all domains world-wide.

Users and administrators of country-code domains (ccTLDs) outside the United States have, for some time, been unhappy at how little attention is given to their views.

This move by the ccTLD representatives comes around the same time as ICANN seems set to approve several new US-english based TLDs.

More information about the dissent is available from The Register and TBTF.