SU domain name temporarily "escaped"

Although the Soviet Union has been in history for more than 30 years, the top-level domain ".su" represented by it is still tenaciously active in the digital age. Recently, with the official response of ccNSO (Country Code Supporting Organization) to ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) policy, the controversy surrounding the existence of .su has temporarily come to an end: .su will not be forced to retire because the Soviet Union no longer exists.

The focus of this debate is whether the ccTLD retirement policy adopted by ICANN in 2022 applies to ".su". The policy stipulates that if ISO (International Organization for Standardization) deletes the Alpha-2 code of a country, the corresponding domain name can start the retirement procedure. However, although .su has long been out of the ISO main code list, it has been included in the "specially reserved" sublist-this area is usually reserved for domain names with special political and historical status such as ".uk" (United Kingdom) or ".eu" (European Union).

In a reply letter, ccNSO clearly stated that only when the SU code is officially removed from the "specially reserved" status, it will constitute a "triggering event" in the policy sense. This statement is equivalent to providing policy protection for the continued existence of .su.

From a technical perspective, this is undoubtedly a gray area of ​​"policy vacuum": .su is neither an existing country code nor has it been completely removed from the ISO, but it still maintains operations. The reason behind this, in addition to the continued promotion of some Russian organizations, is also closely related to ICANN's attitude of striving to maintain stability and avoid geopolitical conflicts in recent years.

Although the domain name is small, it reflects the institutional complexity and realistic compromise of the Internet governance system. Perhaps next time, the fate of .su will be determined by more non-technical factors. For global domain name investors, this type of "historical heritage domain name" may still have both political and market value, but the policy uncertainty behind it is also one of the risks that cannot be ignored.