[Gnso-ssr] discussion -- SAC060 -- User Experience Implications of Active Variant TLDs

Tue Mar 4 02:55:13 UTC 2014

Mike, Fellow GNSO - SSR ers,
I apologise in advance for the long reply, but you did ask a lot of questions, so it's not all my fault.

I can't comment authoritatively on the open and ongoing statuses, since I am not aware of their original purpose. However they cover topics which may require long term policy or process development. So they may remain those statues for a very long time, which in my opinion robs them of their usefulness.

It would also help if the actions were a little clearer and more direct. For example, the objection process comments (Recomm 2) suggest that in the process of developing an IDN LGR, public comments will suffice as a mechanism to manage disagreements regarding variants. However, there is no clarity how such comments should be assessed by each IDN LGR group. Should not requirements or an already developed assessment framework be inherited to their body of work? I'm particularly concerned that LGRs at the root are likely to be conservative (a later recommendation), yet these LGRs may well be used at the second and other levels. How then should comments be interpreted? Will the IDN LGR groups be able to accept comments and apply them only for second and lower levels? there is a contradiction here that will result in either LGRs for the root being inappropriately generous or LGRs at other levels (if they are in fact inherited) not generating the variants that users are used to today.

I'd prefer a much more clear approach to passing requirements to working groups or third parties contracted to ICANN. I'd like a clear statement under each action like:"the working group/third party/whatever, will be required to document evidence that <insert requirement here> has been addressed in their final report" <- when the statement of work or working group guidelines are released, this section should be updated with a link to the matching requirement within that statement of work. We can all then trace advice, to requirement to eventually the action.

The Recommendation 9 status is confusing. So perhaps we need to clarify exactly what this capability represents? does it represent the ability to host a second TLD zone file which mirrors the first? LGR capability is irrelevant in that case. does it represent the ability to take registrations or at least manage (update, including activation/deactivation of variants) IDNs in the TLD? <- that is a significantly more difficult capability to develop and assess. Perhaps conducting the PDT (recently updated) IDN test cases for all submitted languages and scripts might be a useful measure. Bearing in mind that the current LGRs TLD's use are likely to be very different to LGRs developed for the root (yet to be completed, if I'm not mistaken).

I do note that Recommendation 4 is a little more realistic than the matching recommendation (recomm 6 I think) in the original report which required TLD operators to adopt LGRs developed for the root, at their lower levels or show cause why. We need to have a discussion on why the current situation, where TLDs can choose already adopted LGRs or choose not to (reasons undefined) is perceived, on the basis of a recommendation for regulation, to have failed. After all, many of the evaluated TLDs used for the original report were ccTLDs, so regulation is unlikely to influence them. If there are genuine failures of conformity (in implementing LGRs), as opposed to educated divergence, then some clear guidance will be needed in order to influence those TLDs to adopt this advice.

 If our understanding of the current status and intended actions improves, there may be some recommendations we could make.

From: Mike O'Connor [mailto:mike at haven2.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 25 February 2014 12:27 AM
To: GNSO SSR List
Cc: Patrik Fältström; Kal Feher
Subject: discussion -- SAC060 -- User Experience Implications of Active Variant TLDs

hi all,

i'm using Kal's comment as a great reason to start up a new thread that focuses on SAC060.  i'm going to put my kickoff questions at the top of this post and then provide background and documentation links below.

some thread-starting questions:

- what do the "ongoing" and "open" statuses in MyICANN imply?

- opening up the details under the recommendations i'm confronted with many "TBC" entries - what does that mean.  to be considered?  to be confirmed?  to be completed?

- only a couple of the entries on this page list an action-taken by the Board - is there a plan?

- Recommendation 9 (the one about emergency back-end operators/EBERO's supporting variant TLDs) is listed as closed and fully implemented.  is that possible, given the other open issues?

- what's the overall status of all this?  good?  bad?

- there are a fair number of IDNs in the root now - is the the user-experience framework far enough along that we're comfortable that label generation rules (LGRs) will not conflict?

- given all this, is there GNSO policy-action (initial report, alert to a currently-running Working Group, notification to constituencies and stakeholder groups, etc.) that would be helpful in moving this along?

mikey

here's a link to the report

            https://www.icann.org/en/groups/ssac/documents/sac-060-en.pdf

here's a (sorry, gigantic) link that will take you to a listing of the recommendations and their current status on MyICANN

            https://www.myicann.org/board-advice#advice-to-board_f=sac060&advice-to-board_d=false

and here's the list of recommendations from the SAC060 Executive Summary (any typos are mine, i had to retype these)

Recommendation 1: The root zone must use one and only one set of Label Generation Rules (LGR).

Recommendation 2: ICANN must maintain a secure, stable, and objective process to resolve cases in which some members of the community (e.g. , an applicant for a TLD) do not agree with the result of the LGR calculations.

Recommendation 3: ICANN should concentrate foremost on the rules for the root zone.

Recommendation 4: ICANN should coordinate and encourage adoption of these rules at the second and higher levels as a starting point by:
* Updating the IDN Implementation Guidelines and recognizing that a modified version of these rules or a review or appeals process must be required to address special cases for the first and second levels;

* Maintaining and publishing a central repository of rules for second - level domain labels ( 2LD s ) for all Top Level Domains ( TLDs ), encouraging TLD operators to publish their LGRs publicly in the repository maintained by ICANN; and

* Conducting specific training and outreach sessions in cooperation with generic TLD ( gTLD ) and country code TLD ( ccTLD ) operators who intend to launch Internationalize d Domain Name ( IDN ) 2LDs or IDN TLDs, with a focus on consistency of user experience. The outreach should include among others registrants , end users, and application developers.

Recommendation 5: Be very conservative with respect to the code points that are permitted in root zone labels.

Recommendation 6: Because the removal of a delegation from the root zone can have significant non - local impact, new rules added to a LGR must, as far as possible, be backward compatible so that new versions of the LGR do not produce results that are incompatible with historical (existent) activations.

Recommendation 7: Should ICANN decide to implement safeguards, it should distinguish two types of failure modes when a user expects a variant to work, but it is not implemented : denial of service versus misconnection.

Recommendation 8: A process should be developed to activate variants from alloca ta ble variants in LGR.

Recommendation 9: ICANN must ensure that Emergency Back - End Registry Operator ( EBERO ) providers support variant TLDs, and that parity exists for variant support in all relevant systems and functions associated with new TLD components.

Recommendation 10: The current rights protection regime associated with the Trademark Clearinghouse ( TMCH ) process is susceptible to homographic attacks. The roles of the involved parties, specifically registrars, registries , and TMCH, related to matching must be made clear.

Recommendation 11: When registries calculate variant sets for use in validation during registration, such calculations must be done against all of the implemented LGRs covering the script in which the label is applied for.

Recommendation 12: The matching algorithm for TMCH must be improved.

Recommendation 13: The TMCH must add support for IDN variant TLDs. Particularly during the TM Claims service, a name registered under a TLD that has allocated variant TLDs should trigger trademark holder notifications for the registration of the name in all of its allocated variant TLDs.

Recommendation 14: ICANN should ensure that the number of strings that are activated is as small as possible

On Feb 24, 2014, at 1:15 AM, Kal Feher <Kal.Feher at ariservices.com<mailto:Kal.Feher at ariservices.com>> wrote:

i have an almost-sure recollection that there's a review of the new-gTLD rollout that is supposed to happen some time (1-year, 2-years?) after launch.  from a policy-making standpoint, which things in this discussion can wait for that review and which (if any) are more urgent and might require policy attention - again, keeping the focus on SSR if possible.

KF - IMO anything requiring changes in behaviour for systems already in use should be addressed as soon as possible. SSAC60 comments on an ICANN report which attempted to predict user expectations of variants at the root, based on observations at the lower levels. So at the heart of the conclusions in the original report and therefore underpinning the advice within SSAC60, are assumptions about user expectations, which in turn are influenced by system behaviour. Implementing changes after users have already adapted to existing behaviour may introduce instability. So I'd suggest we address:

KF - Recommendation 11
            Registries and Registrars (in presenting options to registrants) will already be using LGRs. If LGRs are to be modified, they should be done as soon as possible. Otherwise you run the risk that implementation is effectively impossible without grandfathering domains which break any expanded variant set <- which of course will confuse users even more. There should probably be some kind of drop dead date for this recommendation if not implemented. Otherwise you'll do more harm than good. Of course, in order to create the universal variant set, a registry will need to know all current (and soon to be implemented?) LGRs for that script. So the concise list will need to exist first.

KF - Recommendation 12
For the same reason as 11. Since labels are not exclusively allocated to users in the TMCH, there shouldn't be any grandfathering problems. But expectations of protection/notification may change as will the labels for which SMDs are eligible. <-presumably new SMDs would be provided to those applicable

On Feb 21, 2014, at 1:53 AM, Patrik Fältström <paf at frobbit.se<mailto:paf at frobbit.se>> wrote:

On 2014-02-21 07:55, Kal Feher wrote:

Comments in line.

KF - point taken, but vague assertions to dire consequences in any
stakeholder forum are of little use to the community and should be
discouraged.

Once again, if comments are taken out of context, they will be out of
context. So that the assertions are vague I blame whoever did copy the
subset of the discussion (that also was via voice, not only text).

KF - Frustration at a lack of progress should not automatically
translate to advice not to adhere to your Registry Agreement. I think
some perspective is required.

There have not been any such advice that I know of.

Please see the SSAC report.

KF - I reiterate that it is generic and lacking any actual detail,
especially with regards to security or stability issues. There's a
suggestion (recommendation 10) to clarify roles, which is certainly a
good idea, but hardly catastrophic if not implemented and has little
value in preventing homographic attacks.

A clarification of the roles now exists.

The Registry Agreement (RPM Requirements) says that registries must
check all names in a variant set during the TM Claims period.

This is _not_ updated in the scorecard.

KF - I think the TMCH should certainly be improved, I have a list of
gripes that would keep IBM busy for years, but we should be clear
about risks and impact. I see plenty situations in which TMCH clients
will not receive the result they expect. But there doesn't appear to
be any security or stability risks that can be coherently described.
Certainly none in the report.

SSAC has as a role do detect stability risks which include cases where
the functionality of a system is not according to the claims.

TMCH is well defined for the latin script, but not for non-latin
scripts. Specifically when you have cases where different LGR is used
for the same script in two different TLDs.

Now, whether we will get different LGR for different TLDs is something
only the integration panel can say anything about.

The SSAC document point out that the matching rules used in the TMCH
are not the same as the combination of matching rules plus variant
rules, specifically for non-ascii scripts.

KF - Irrelevant. Homographic attacks require an actual registration.
Either a registry's LGR's prevent it or they don't. for the TMCH it
is more a failure of user expectations, which should not be conflated
with an attack. It is important, but should be addressed separately.

SSAC disagree with this conclusion of yours. But it is perfectly ok of
course for you to draw the conclusion that you do not think the issues
with IDN and variants in TMCH is a problem. That is your choice.

SSAC do think it is a problem that the TMCH does not have any well
defined rules for non-latin script. YMMV.

KF - What of the registries that should be EBERO'd? If true it is of
serious concern, if not true we really need to tone down the hyperbole.

The EBERO is an issue separate from TMCH and the question was whether
a zone that is not signed correctly is according to the EBERO
specification "broken" in such a way that EBERO can be invoked.

That question is not answered and not clear in the EBERO specification
or elsewhere. It would be sad if it is the case it will only be
resolved in court or arbitration when a real case is on the table.

Patrik

PHONE: 651-647-6109, FAX: 866-280-2356, WEB: www.haven2.com<http://www.haven2.com>, HANDLE: OConnorStP (ID for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)

PHONE: 651-647-6109, FAX: 866-280-2356, WEB: www.haven2.com<http://www.haven2.com>, HANDLE: OConnorStP (ID for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)

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