[Latingp] Variants -- Case for Considering Upper Case

[Bill Jouris]

One of the classifications where we have disagreement is over Upper Case / Lower Case.  Here is how I see it.  

We (at ICANN, and folks at the IETF) know that domain names are strictly lower case.  But the vast majority of Internet users know no such thing.  They have decades of experience which teaches them that Upper Case and Lower Case are totally interchangable.  Thus, if they see www.icann.org or WWW.ICANN.ORG or http://www.icann.org they will expect (correctly!) that all of those will take them to the same website.  
 
The Least Astonishment Principle therefore requires us to recognize that, for our user community, Upper and Lower case are variants.  Period.  We may wish that this was not the case.  But we cannot ignore the reality that it is.  
I would also note that the IP's words on this subject are "the GPs are not required to consider capital letters".  We do not live in a world where everything which is not required is forbidden -- and we have not been forbidden to consider the reality before us.

 Bill Jouris
Inside Products
bill.jouris at insidethestack.com
831-659-8360
925-855-9512 (direct)
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