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--></style></head><body lang="EN-US" link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class="WordSection1"><p class="MsoNormal">While these are good to know about, the public comment period has closed, and all going well, the ICANN Board is going to ratify them at this meeting.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">The big news out of this is that, for the first time since 2010, ICANN will open the possibility of allocating and/or delegating IDN TLDs in scripts that have variants. That is a significant event for those parts of the world that are primarily non-ASCII in their expression offline and online, and who have different representations of the same word (I won’t get into defining variants in this post, it’s a huge rathole).</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">In parallel, ICANN is also nearing the final stages of the next version of the IDN Guidelines, which are slated for ratification in the May-June timeframe. The effect of that will be binding on all gTLD registries that implement IDNs.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">-Ram</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><div><div style="border:none;border-top:solid #e1e1e1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in"><p class="MsoNormal"><b>From:</b> Ajay Data <<a href="mailto:ajay@data.in">ajay@data.in</a>> <br><b>Sent:</b> Saturday, March 9, 2019 12:51 AM<br><b>To:</b> <a href="mailto:ua-discuss@icann.org">ua-discuss@icann.org</a><br><b>Subject:</b> [UA-discuss] Managing IDN Variant TLD</p></div></div><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.65pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black">Dear All,</span><span lang="EN-IN" style="color:black"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.65pt;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-align:start;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;word-spacing:0px"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black"> </span><span lang="EN-IN" style="color:black"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.65pt;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-align:start;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;word-spacing:0px"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black">ICANN announced the release of the <a href="https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/idn-variant-tld-implementation-2018-07-26-en" target="_blank">Recommendations for Managing Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) Variant Top-Level Domains (TLDs)</a> as a collection of six documents. These recommendations have been developed by the ICANN organization with community feedback received during the <a href="https://www.icann.org/public-comments/managing-idn-variant-tlds-2018-07-25-en" target="_blank">Public Comment</a> period.</span><span lang="EN-IN" style="color:black"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.65pt;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-align:start;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;word-spacing:0px"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black"> </span><span lang="EN-IN" style="color:black"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:11.25pt;margin-left:51.0pt;line-height:12.65pt;background:white;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-align:start;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;word-spacing:0px"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:#333333">A. <a href="https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/idn-variant-tld-exec-summary-25jan19-en.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color:#0098d5">IDN Variant TLD Implementation – Executive Summary</span></a> [PDF, 70 KB]</span><span lang="EN-IN" style="color:black"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:11.25pt;margin-left:51.0pt;line-height:12.65pt;background:white;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-align:start;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;word-spacing:0px"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:#333333">B. <a href="https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/idn-variant-tld-motivation-premises-framework-25jan19-en.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color:#0098d5">IDN Variant TLD Implementation – Motivation, Premises and Framework</span></a> [PDF, 391 KB]</span><span lang="EN-IN" style="color:black"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:11.25pt;margin-left:51.0pt;line-height:12.65pt;background:white;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-align:start;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;word-spacing:0px"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:#333333">C. <a href="https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/idn-variant-tld-recommendations-analysis-25jan19-en.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color:#0098d5">IDN Variant TLD Implementation – Recommendations and Analysis</span></a> [PDF, 382 KB]</span><span lang="EN-IN" style="color:black"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:11.25pt;margin-left:51.0pt;line-height:12.65pt;background:white;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-align:start;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;word-spacing:0px"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:#333333">D. <a href="https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/idn-variant-tld-rationale-lgr-25jan19-en.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color:#0098d5">IDN Variant TLD Implementation – Rationale for RZ-LGR</span></a> [PDF, 497 KB]</span><span lang="EN-IN" style="color:black"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:11.25pt;margin-left:51.0pt;line-height:12.65pt;background:white;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-align:start;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;word-spacing:0px"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:#333333">E. <a href="https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/idn-variant-tld-risks-mitigation-25jan19-en.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color:#0098d5">IDN Variant TLD Implementation – Risks and their Mitigation</span></a> [PDF, 230 KB]</span><span lang="EN-IN" style="color:black"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:11.25pt;margin-left:51.0pt;line-height:12.65pt;background:white;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-align:start;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;word-spacing:0px"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:#333333">F. <a href="https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/idn-variant-tld-appendices-25jan19-en.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color:#0098d5">IDN Variant TLD Implementation – Appendices (A: Definitions, B: Use of ROID, C: Limiting Allocated Variant TLDs)</span></a> [PDF, 530 KB]</span><span lang="EN-IN" style="color:black"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.65pt;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-align:start;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;word-spacing:0px"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black">Read more: <a href="https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2019-02-05-en" target="_blank">https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2019-02-05-en</a></span><span lang="EN-IN" style="color:black"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.65pt;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-align:start;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;word-spacing:0px"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black"> </span><span lang="EN-IN" style="color:black"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.65pt;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;text-align:start;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;word-spacing:0px"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black">I think, it may be useful knowledge for some members to read and be aware about this, as your inputs will be valuable while we deal with variants in future. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.65pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.65pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black">Thanks. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.65pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.65pt"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black">Ajay Data </span><span lang="EN-IN" style="color:black"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IN"> </span></p></div></body></html>