Btw, I also know about another potential conflict coming up - I've heard of plans within Germany to align 2nd-level domain names with the regional abbreviations known to all from German car plates - e.g. K for Cologne, DA for Darmstadt, etc. Crazy idea: if company X moves from Cologne to Darmstadt, its domain name would change, they would have to reprint their letter heads, business cards, etc., and someone would have to cope with all the bounces of mails sent to the old domain name...

Walter - I don't know where you heard of plans - there is some brainstorming in progress to somehow put structure on the DE domain - that's about as far as things have progressed until now. I'd believe the people involved (many of whom are on the RIPE DNS list) are aware of the potential problems so don't expect any surprises.

Assuming that we as international organisation could stay out of this scheme and retain esa.de, this would cause a clash with the region of Eisenach (also ESA), and the same considerations as above would apply. Which makes it unlikely that you could stay out of such a "reorganisation" (I'd rather call it a mess-up).

I, for one, would expect any such plan, assuming it ever were to be implemented, not to be implemented retrospectively, this would not be acceptable.

Comments/Suggestions welcome! Contrary to what I've suggested to you long ago, I'd now recommend that you put ESA under the .INT domain; chances are zero that there will ever be a .EU domain for Europe, unless someone can convince the Powers That Be that there is a very clear need for such a "pseudo top level domain", quite analogous to the current 3-letter TLD's; or maybe the analogy could be carried even further by creating a domain .EUR; but then, who is going to manage it?

Good idea with INT now that X.400 is dying. Mabye EU or EUR is not such a good idea for ESA since one cannot exclude that they establish or have a launch facility in S. America but that's beside the point. Why shouldn't we beat up Mr. IANA for an .EUR and get the Commission to finance it, after the event that is :-)

Piet

Dave