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 Research Institute for the Development of Public Networks (RosNIIROS), of this decision.
According to the rules, if a country or territory is no longer listed in ISO 3166-1, the corresponding domain must be deleted 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 removed in 1992.
Operators can request an extension of the period for an additional five years. There is also the possibility of amending the ICANN policy to allow .su to be retained, but this would require a complex approval procedure.
This step could set a precedent for other national domains, especially in the event of territorial changes. For example, the possible transfer of the Chagos Archipelago by the UK 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 regarding 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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