Talk:Country code second-level domain

Origin

I suspect this term is a WP manufacture, as most people on the web seem to copy the definition from here as well.

Consider for example: A ccTLD is:

US

i.e. a country code in the highest level. Logically, a country code second-level domain would be a country code at the second level:

US.COM

but not

COM.US

which is simply a second-level US domain. Indeed there are sites that exactly display a table of country codes underneath another toplevel domain, but copy the WP definition as the heading. See: http://www.hitsol.net/domains/country-code-second-level-domain-ccsld, where the definitions of table header and table entries conflict.

This article needs reliable references that are older than this article itself. It may be observed that WP editors do manufacture terms that get a life on their own because of WP's draw of popular attention. Kbrose (talk) 17:29, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

@Kbrose I believe you're correct. I've searched around a bit and:

1. I could not find examples of ICANN officially using the term "ccSLD", ever – as opposed to "ccTLD" for example, which is used often and even has a glossary definition (example);
2. For what it's worth, the Universal Acceptance Steering Group included a definition for "ccSLD" in a 2016 draft of "Introduction to Universal Acceptance", although it did not specify whether it meant the "US.COM" type or the "COM.US" type. Additionally, it has since been removed;
3. Most examples of "ccSLD" in a "near-official" manner (e.g. requests directly to ICANN) I could find refer to the "US.COM" type. For example, the proposal for .tel (from October 2000) has the following:

".TEL will allow a sub-addressing structure of country based two-character sub-domain names, ccSLDs, (e.g., us.tel or uk.tel) which will mirror to an extent traditional telephone country and area codes for over 200 countries. [...] Country-Code Registries will be appointed at national levels to operate each ccSLD"

Another example, from February 2015 (which, granted, is after the creation of this article in 2007), is a complaint from Italy's government on the registration of it.pizza:

"IT is the country code for Italy and since 2010 "pizza" is a Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG) of Italy [...] The combination of our ccSLD with the name of a TSG could lead the online consumers to believe that they are buying a genuine pizza"

I believe this article was spawned out of a misunderstanding of the term at best, or an invention by the original author at worst. However, that is not to say I believe it should be deleted, necessarily, as there are modern examples of the term in the wild (e.g. on Dynadot's FAQ, on Shopify's .co.in description page). If it wasn't a term before, I suppose it is now – even if unofficial. The article should probably reflect that disparity, give both definitions, and clarify that it isn't an official term. — Avelludo 17:17, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Does this article add any value? Merge with main CCTLD page?

Given that this article doesn't have much content, is there really any value in having it here? Could this instead be a section of the larger Country code top-level domain article that mentions that some CCTLDs might set up classes of second-level domains? It seems like that might be a better use than just having this small bit of text here. Thoughts? comments? - Dyork (talk) 01:01, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

The older format of second levels used to follow the .UK version (.co.tld, .net.tld etc) or the legacy gTLDs (.com.tld .net.tld etc). Some, in the days before search engines decided to integrate the states or localities as second or third levels (.US, .BR, .PL, .RU from memory). Some of the newer ccTLDs introduced additional second levels. It is an important topic but it needs a bit of work. Jmccormac (talk) 06:53, 6 May 2021 (UTC)