Re: [registrars] International Domain Names

[Rick H Wesson <wessorh@ar.com>]

Michael,

comments in line...

On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, Michael D. Palage wrote:

> In Stockholm the issue of International (multi-lingual) domain names was
> raised at the Names Counsel by our representative Paul Kane. Based upon
> discussions with Paul, there appears to be a concern among a number of the
> registrars that he spoke with that in Verisign's rush to market with
> international domain names, Registrar's concerns are not being properly
> addressed.
>
> Using the following analogy, in VeriSign's rush to build the houses,
> VeriSign is building no infrastructure (i.e. roads and highways) to get to
> the house. Specifically, the lack of adequate tools and other support
> services that are critical for registrars to service their clients.

Its the IETF's role to design the roads, and highways not VeriSign's; I
also point out that the IETF has advised VeriSign numerous times not to
deploy their technology (RACE) and that the IETF will *not* choose RACE as
a candidate ACE for the IDN working group.

I strongly disagree with VeriSign's conclusion, as a IDN technology
provider and a ACE design team member I work with and speak about IDN to
lots of folks. In my experience I can't fathom how VeriSign came up with
the conclusion they state that their survey supports.


> I was approached in Stockholm by VeriSign registry that spoke of a survey
> indicating general support among the registrars to move forward with the
> international domain name test bed. I had no first hand knowledge of this
> survey and it appeared on its face to contradict with the feedback that Paul
> Kane had been hearing from the constituency members.

Aparently some registrars were consulted; as many of the 800,000 domains
near their one year renewal date I am sure many of the end users are
frusterated by the fact that they can't use their domains which have been
paid for but are still unusable.

> Therefore I would like to put forth for consideration, the issue of
> international domain names. If the constituency decides to move forward to
> the Names Counsel and the DNSO with regard to the Xfer issue, I believe that
> it would be in our interest to ask for consideration of a ICANN formal
> policy regarding international domain names as well.

There are provisions in the new Registries contracts that require them to
deny the registrations of names starting with 2chars and two dashes (bq--)
so I don't think we have to worry about the new gTLD registries adopting
an IDN technology prematurely.

> As registrars struggle to ramp-up for new TLDs, it is crucial that the
> proper support be available to meet our needs with regard to international
> domain names.

From my discussions with the registries none will be working with IDN
names until there is a RFC put forward by the IDN working group.

> I believe that taking a pro-active stance on both the Xfer issue and
> international domain names will make a strong statement as to the commitment
> of the registrar constituency with regard to issues that impact it and its
> customers.

Xfer is more critical, however if we have consensus on IDN I'd love to see
them both vigorously pushed forward.

-rick