Unilateral change in the root zone file --- Technically, what could be removed from the root zone file is an entire country domain - .us, or .uk, .cn, .ru, etc. Sub-domains - those of .gov.uk for instance - are under control of the particular state (UK in this example). Removing a country domain would effectively remove the country's websites and services (all those using the country domain) from the net - it wouldn't disconnect the users from that country, of course, everyone would still be able to use gmail.com or whatever, it would 'only' make all the public (say .uk) sites and services unavailable.

In practice, as we describe below, it wouldn't really play that way. If this decision would be unilateral - say by the US, which has a judicial control over ICANN and VeriSign etc - this change could easily remain valid on only some of the root zone servers - those under the US jurisdiction. All the others could decide not to accept the change, and continue running the previous file, thus making the country visible for those accessing their servers (in addition, users could decide to follow those servers only, and thus the unilateral change could end useless).

The very process of bringing such decisions in ICANN is very inclusive and multistakeholder, and almost all the governments of the world now sit at the Government Advisory Committee which could stop the decision. It would need to be a 'brute force' by the US to take over - including physical force since root zone servers are extremely well protected.

Politically, it wouldn't make sense for the US to do. On one hand, the effect would be limited, if any. On the other, its entire credibility in running the domain through a multistakeholder model - in which the US businesses (as well as any other, of course) have a strong say, would be ruined, and the ICANN model would be dead. Not least, by fragmenting the Internet the US - which is still the dominant provider of various online services, cloud, etc - would be at great loss - more than anyone else.

Thus, the fear from this happening is way overblown. But, we had some insane developments in the US in the last years, so...

Source author: Vladimir Radunovic vladar@diplomacy.edu