Actually, all current 2 character codes, including those you refer to, are allocated
for individual countries by the ISO-3166 standard. Those countries you cite
have opened up their ccTLDs for commercial use worldwide -- either by themselves
or by licensing use of the ccTLD to a for-profit company. Nothing wrong with
that.The issue is consistency and organizational use. ICANN does not control
assignment of the 2 character ISO-3166 codes. (At least I don't think it does.)
As the ccTLD constituency uses these codes for their country TLDs, there would be
political issues if a country wanted a particular ISO-3166 code, the code is unassigned
in ISO-3166, but was already in use as a gTLD by a commercial entity.
The issue
I have with 1 character gTLDs is that they are not descriptive and, when embedded
in e-mail or web sites, are not easy to read. The purpose of introducing new
gTLDs should be to allow more use and more ease of use of the Internet. I do
not believe allowing 1 and 2 character **commercial** gTLDs serves that purpose.
I
do think the *goals* of having a .yp gTLD are excellent. I just don't believe
that a 2 character extension should be taken away from the ccTLD constituency.
If a geopolitical group wants to apply for .yp and then license it to be used for
"yellow pages", that is their business.
Finally, you're the first person to attack
me for being in a business too long after only 6 months! You assume too much.