[thiht]

Other countries could create their gTLD as they see fit: .gouv, .ukgov, etc.

They instead prefer using a SLD (like .gouv.fr) because they’re complete owner of their ccTLD. ccTLDs are not affiliated in anyway with ICANN. I’m guessing .gov is a special case nowadays, and probably considered like a ccTLD from the ICANN point of view, I’ll have to look into it

Edit: it seems like gov is considered as a Sponsored TLD[1] (sTLD). Not sure what it implies.

[1]: https://icannwiki.org/STLD

[zokier]

> ccTLDs are not affiliated in anyway with ICANN

ccTLDs delegations are managed by IANA, who are owned by ICANN

[giobox]

While its true there is still a relationship back to ICANN for ccTLDs, politically it would be a shitstorm of epic proportions if the US/ICANN interfered in the administration of ccTLDs - most countries (understandably!) see their ccTLD as an increasingly sovereign thing that is naturally owned by the State, not the registrars or domain name registration system.

While it might be technically possible for ICANN to make certain adjustments to the ccTLD system or the registration requirements, politically its much much harder and gets harder still with time. Imagine the response from most soverign states etc if their own ccTLD was meddled with in a manner they didn't appreciate.

ICANN has slowly tried to move more and more of the ccTLD stuff to international working groups ("Governmental Advisory Committee") to put clean air between the US and ccTLDs, but the link is still there:

https://gac.icann.org/

https://gac.icann.org/principles-and-guidelines/public/princ...

[chipsa]

ICANN hasn't even managed to get rid of the .SU ccTLD.

[giobox]

Still ~100,000 .su domains live supposedly.