Note below...According to Robert Elz of Australia...
Countries are now different from their governments.
I still fail to see how Robert Elz is a country. I have not been
able to locate the country of Robert Elz on my World Map from
Rand-McNally here on the wall.

JF

----------
From: 	Robert Elz[SMTP:kre§munnari.OZ.AU]
Sent: 	Tuesday, May 26, 1998 3:38 AM
To: 	dns§iia.net.au
Subject: 	Re: DNS: DNS Governance 

    Date:        Tue, 26 May 1998 11:15:45 +1000
    From:        Larry Bloch <larry&#167;netregistry.com.au>
    Message-ID:  <199805260112.LAA16888&#167;fep2.mail.ozemail.net>

  | And that your delegated authority for .au is equivalen to Ozemails for
  | .aust.com.

No, there are differences, aust.com is no different in nature than
ibm.com or mci.net (etc), it's a domain delegated to an organisation for
its own use, however it wants to use it (including selling off sub-domains).

AU is for Australia as a whole, I'm just (more or less) its trustee.
Like all domains, AU requires someone, or some body, to manage it, to
make whatever decisions need making, and keep some kind of consistent
policy and administration.   For now, for AU, that happens to be me.  It
obviously won't be forever.

Similarly, if its owner (ozemail right?) vanishes, aust.com will vanish
along with it - on the other hand, AU will continue, at least as long as
Australia does, whatever happens to me.

And for those who are just as ignorant on this list as they are on all the
others - no, the country TLDs were never intended for governments, all it
would take is a little historical perspective to understand that.   Back when
the country domains were created, there were no governments in the least bit
interested in the internet, or its name space - with the possible exception of
a few pieces of the US govt.   Allocating domains to country governments would
have been the height of absurdity.   The country domains were (and are) for the 
countries, not for their governments.

kre