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Many of the RSEP requests are for the release of two character ASCII labels not on the ISO 3166-2 1 alpha 2 standard. However, the ISO 3166-2 1 alpha 2 standard is not a static document; it will be updated to reflect changes to countries and territories. For example, BQ, CW and SX were added to the ISO 3166-2 1 alpha 2 standard in late 2010 (see http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_3166-1_newsletter_vi-8_split_of_the_dutch_antilles_final-en.pdf). This gives rise to a potential disparity in the implementation of Specification 5, Section 2 where future countries and territories would be treated differently than those countries and territories on today's ISO 3166-2 1 alpha 2 list.

However, two character ASCII labels at the second level have been made available for some gTLDs and many ccTLDs. Shorter domains are more desirable to potential registrants and two character ASCII labels can be used for alternative meanings than the one for the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 standard. For these reasons, absent any DNS-related security or stability issues, the ALAC believes that all the restrictions of two character ASCII labels at the 2nd level within a TLD should ultimately be removed, and has no problem with the current exceptions being approved.

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