I like Domainincite’s summary of how this kind of thing is handled https://domainincite.com/30406-five-times-icann-deleted-a-cc...

The every.to description of how the decommissioning happens is not quite right: the TLD remains under the control of its existing registry. The registry will discuss the process with IANA but IANA are not directly involved until the TLD’s delegation is changed or deleted.

The decommissioning won’t happen for 5 years (or maybe 10 if they get an extension). However, there might be a significant change much sooner. The registry that runs a ccTLD (country code top-level domain) does so by agreement between IANA and the government of the territory.

Paul Kane / ICB took control of the ccTLDs of various small British oversees territories in the 1990s before it became obvious to non-geeks that they might be valuable, and the British government has not been bothered to do anything about this situation. The registries have since changed hands a few times and are now owned by a private equity firm.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.io
- https://icannwiki.org/.io

It’s possible that Mauritius might decide they should take control of .io and run it until turnoff (if turnoff is necessary). They could move it to their own registry operator, or renegotiate the contract with the existing registry operator so that the profits go to Mauritius instead of the private equity firm.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.mu
- https://icannwiki.org/.mu

Another detail that every.to is a bit vague about is who decides what country codes exist. Since the 1980s, IANA has deferred to ISO 3166. Its contents are determined by the ISO 3166 maintenance agency, which hews close to the UN’s determination of which entities are countries – their FAQ says they are stricter now than they were in the past.

- https://www.iso.org/iso-3166-country-codes.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166

I’ve seen some talk elsewhere that IANA might decide to reclassify .io as a non-ccTLD. That’s extremely unlikely, because it would imply diverging from ISO 3166, which implies IANA would have to take over the ISO 3166 MA’s job, at least for the DNS. It would also upset a lot of governments that really hate the way IANA and ICANN are established, and who think it should all be under the control of the ITU – and therefore the UN, not the USA. It’s a much more horrible can of worms than you might expect.

So if .io is to continue longer than 5 or 10 years, I can see two possibilities.

* Mauritius might decide to administer the Chagos islands as an overseas territory; with the agreement of the UN, and if it keeps an IO-ish name, it could remain in ISO 3166 as before. But this is unlikely because it contradicts Mauritius’s claim over the territory, so I believe it’s politically untenable.

* Some kind of fudge is agreed between Mauritius / the UN / the ISO 3166 MA / the IANA, leading to IO being “exceptionally reserved”

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2#Exceptional...

Ironically, one of the exceptional reservations is UK heh. (The UK’s official ISO 3166 code is GB.)

Extra ironically, another is DG, Diego Garcia, the largest of the Chagos islands, which hosts a US military base which was the reason the British evicted all the Chagossians. (Wow my country has done a lot of genocides.)

I wonder, could IANA request an exceptional reservation like the UPU has done for AC (and in the past the Channel Islands)? Or like the “certain telecoms installations” (does that mean NSA / GCHQ?) did for DG?

Anyway, it will be interesting to see what happens. It mostly depends on what Mauritius decides to do.