ICANN plans to shut down the USSR domain (.su) by 2030 in accordance with its policy of removing obsolete country code top-level domains (ccTLD). The organization has officially notified the domain operator, the Russian Institute for the Development of Public Networks (RosNIIROS).
According to the rules, if a country or territory no longer appears in the ISO 3166-1 standard, the corresponding domain must be removed after a transition period, which is usually five years. In the case of .su, this process is being initiated with a delay – the USSR ceased to exist in 1991, and its ISO code was excluded in 1992.
Operators can request an extension of the period for an additional five years. There is also the possibility of making changes to ICANN's policy that would allow .su to be preserved, but this would require a complex approval procedure.
This step could set a precedent for other national domains, especially in the case of territorial changes. For example, the possible transfer of the Chagos Archipelago by the United Kingdom to Mauritius could lead to a review of the status of the popular .io domain.
RosNIIROS, in turn, reported that it had not received any notifications about the exclusion of the .su domain from the DNS root zone. The Institute also reminded that the .su domain is part of the Russian national domain zone along with the .ru and .рф domains in accordance with the order of Roskomnadzor dated July 29, 2019.
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