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Dear All,<br>
I appreciate the evolution of the IDNs text (and see nice changes in
the findings). Canwe go a bit further? I was wondering if we might
take one more attempt to a) define IDNs (for the many readers who
will have no idea), b) and define better the ambiguous term "this
environment".<br>
<br>
For smarter (and more awake) people than I am, do you see a way to
merge the two texts below? I truly want to make sure that everyone
understands the importance and timeliness of our recommendations!<br>
<br>
Also, I saw that Peter has some ideas in this area, but did not
propose wording changes (I don't think). Does some of the text below
cover your thoughts?<br>
<br>
Best and tx,<br>
Kathy<br>
<br>
<br>
<u>Findings/Kathy:<br>
</u>[from the Executive Summary] Policy and implementation of the
Whois protocol and registration data have not kept pace with the
real world. International Domain Names (IDNs) were introduced to
great fanfare by ICANN in 2000, and in 2010 at the root level,
without a corresponding change to its policies related to WHOIS.<br>
<br>
What this means, is that while domain names can now be written in
Arabic for example, the contact information for these domains must
still be transliterated into a format ill-suited to the purpose.
[from the Public Forum Slides] These are difficult issues, and
members of the ICANN Community have worked hard to date, but the
current Whois protocol has no support for non-ASCII characters and
cannot signal a non-ASCII script. Some ccTLD registries and
registrars have implemented ad hoc solutions and arbitrary mappings
of local scripts onto ASCII code points, and as a result, IDN Whois
data today often appears as a nonsense sequence of ASCII characters.<br>
<br>
<u>Findings/Sarmad<br>
</u>Perhaps it should be no surprise that within this environment [<i>Kathy:
which environment?] </i>, policy and implementation have not kept
pace with the real world. A significant example of this is
Internationalised Domain Names (IDN), which have been available for
registration at the second level for over a decade, and at the Top
Level for more than a year. During this time, WHOIS policies were
not amended to accommodate the obvious need to support non-ASCII
character sets even though there was a recognition that
Internationalisation is essential for the Internet’s development as
a global resource. There is ongoing work within ICANN (e.g. joint
gNSO and SSAC working group on Internationalised Registration Data –
IRD WG) in this area. As the need is imminent, this work needs to
proceed with priority in coordination with other relevant work
outside the ICANN’s ambit (e.g. WIERDS initiative at IETF), to make
internationalised domain name registration data accessible.<br>
<br>
The NORC Study on Data Accuracy highlighted IDN contact data as a
major cause of apparent inaccuracy. Having internationalized data
will also address this source of inaccuracy.<br>
<br>
[end]<br>
<br>
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