[UA-discuss] Would this be in scope or not?

[Edward Lewis]

While listening to a presentation on UA given to staff, an issue related
to internationalized email addresses came back to my mind.  I haven't been
tracking UA for a few months now, focusing on other projects.

I learned of this list and flipped quickly through the archives.  So may
be my concern isn't quite on-topic.  I mean, this is not about getting
software to properly handle the spectrum of Unicode characters.

Taking a step back, ICANN is about identifiers, and we are striving
towards a globally available system that features uniqueness in the
mapping of identifiers to "reality."  (One of the core concerns about IDNA
2008 is that the mapping from what's-on-a-business-card to
whats-in-the-DNS is two-way and repeatable.)  Specifically this has been
about domain names but by extension through Universal Acceptance, email
addresses.

Along those lines I have been thinking about they increasing use of email
addresses as identifiers for just about all on-line sites.  Stores,
utilities, and more seriously, medical professionals have made me think of
this, as well as the option to either 1) get a free identifier 2) get one
tied to your ISP/utility or 3) create your own.  I've come to be a bit
afraid about stability of this system.  On one hand, the identifier I use
is used in many places and in many ways, hence changing it is a pain.  On
the other hand, who guarantees that the identifier will last "long enough"
and not change hands if I (or an executor) don't maintain it.

The standard for the mailbox name (as in mailbox at domainname) is that the
treatment of the mailbox name is up to the domain name.  "Dots" are
immaterial to mail operators (which has proven to be a surprise), the "+"
might be treated specially, etc. I squirm when I think that there's a
desire to think of email names as global and unique.  So, in a way, it
seems like the wrong foundation for an ICANN effort.  (Languages have had
to adopt '@' already.  Not sure about '+' and other syntactic sugar in
mailbox names.

Yet I understand the "killer" app necessity of IDN email for the new TLDs.
 I totally get that, and I bet so do the members of the list, so I won't
belabor the point.

The question though is - how to you build a castle on sand?  It's not
clear to me that ICANN could drive a standard handling of mailbox names, I
think that would be quixotic.  Then again maybe tackling mailbox names
isn't necessary, maybe all we really need to do is get clients to work
with an expanded definition of what a mailbox name is.  (Lurking in me is
the thought of "variants" and how they might cause trouble in mailbox
names if there's no canonical form as defined in IDNA 2008 for domain
names.)


Ed Lewis
Senior Technologist, Office of CTO