ICANN moves to retire Soviet-era .SU country domain name

Domain system overseer plans to retire .su in 2030.

ICANN has formally notified the operator of the legacy Soviet Union country code domain, .su, of its plans to retire the domain in five years, Domain Name Wire has learned.

The .su namespace, which remains open for new registrations and currently has around 100,000 domain names, is managed by the Russian Institute for Development of Public Networks.

On February 6, Public Technical Identifiers (PTI), the entity responsible for Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) operations under ICANN, sent a private letter to the domain’s administrator, informing it of the planned phase-out by 2030.

The decision follows the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) retirement policy, which was developed by the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) and approved by ICANN’s board in 2022. According to this policy, when a country or territory is removed from the ISO 3166-1 standard, its corresponding country code domain must be retired following an orderly transition period.

By default, this period is five years, though ccTLD operators can request an extension of up to another five years.

Although .su was removed from the ISO 3166-1 standard back in 1992, ICANN had delayed any retirement action while the ccNSO developed its current formal policy. Now, more than two years after approving the policy, ICANN is moving forward.

According to PTI’s letter, ICANN planned to issue a formal Notice of Removal on February 13, making the decision public and officially triggering the five-year countdown. However, it appears that this notice has not yet been sent.

Once the process is officially underway, .su will be set for removal by 2030, unless the operator and PTI agree to an extension.

The letter also acknowledges the possibility of a policy change that could allow .su to remain, but this would require approval through the ccNSO.

PTI’s decision comes at a particularly sensitive time, given ongoing geopolitical tensions involving Russia. The move could draw unwanted attention to ICANN.

The handling of .su could set precedent for another country code domain. The United Kingdom currently plans to hand over control of the British Indian Ocean Territories to Mauritius. This could result in the removal of IO from the ISO list, triggering the retirement process of the popular .io domain name.

Now that PTI is triggering the process created by the ccNSO, it will be interesting to see if the pressure of an actual removal forces any changes.