[council] Registrars oppose Verisign's iDN that will not work at application level.

["Paul M. Kane" <Paul.Kane@reacto.com>]

In my mail box this morning I received the following, and as a result I
will be asking for this issue to be considered as AoB during today's
call:
http://www.icann-registrars.org/pdfs/Council10-10-01.PDF

A text version reads:

Names Council:

The ICANN Registrars recommend that ccTLD and gTLD registries delay the
deployment of iDN in the gTLD zones until the IETF has the recommended
ACE
and associated Nameprep/StringPrep Internet-Drafts assigned a RFC
status.
The ACE-ACM-Z Internet-Draft and the StringPrep Internet-Darft are still

under development and may change. Due to Internet Stability constraints
Registrars prefer to wait until a RFC status has been assigned to
ACE-ACM-Z and StringPrep before the names are rolled out in a gTLD zone.

Furthermore Registrars request that the current registrations be
extended
for the full lifetime that the iDN registrations have not been in the
gTLD
zones; meaning the next billing cycle for any iDN name registered starts

on the day the name is available for use in a gTLD zone. iDN names
currently registered should not expire until the can be used on a
world-wide basis for one year.

Registrars recognize that there will be a tremendous cost to registrar
technical and customer support centers during the transition as every
iDN
holder must be notified that their domain name has changed. Registrars
understand that some names may not be available under the new ACE-ACM-Z
encoding and we request written notification by the registry of which
names may not be available for conversion.

Registrars are still unclear as to the status of the Walid patents on
iDN
technology and need additional time before iDN names are rolled out.
Apparently walid (http://www.walid.com/en/docs/pfaq.shtml) claims rights
on
iDN implementations. Registrars require a document explaining any
intellectual property pitfalls that registrars may be faced with when an

iDN is rolled out in a gTLD zone.

With the above issues in mind registrars cannot support the roll out of
iDN
names in gTLD zones until the issues surrounding stability have been
addressed.

Rick Wesson
CTO Registrars Constituency