It is exactly because of ICANN's delay (2000-2007) on implementation of IDNs that results in a couple of ad hoc alternatives. Despite their names labelled as "testbeds", many of them did charge for registration and made quite a fortune out of the market. As Danny cited from the research results, they were released to the market without proper technical rules, implementation rules and policy rules. As a result, security loopholes (phishing), cybersquatting and others pledging the users. If ICANN had implemented the IDNs under its authoritative ouspieces, these alternatives would not have emerged in the first place. Given that ICANN is seemingly moving forward technically (with the coordination of IETF) and normatively, the users of IDNs, of course, want ICANN to "get it done" asap as well as "get it right". To show you how frustrated of long-awaiting non-English (non-ASCII) users are, I'm writing the following part in my native scripts. 我们需要一点摸着石头过河的精神去实施IDNs。以谨慎为名、止步不前的人，人要么不需要IDNs，要么想独享信息社会的好处。请第一种人设身处地、请第二种人敞开心扉。让我们一起拥抱超越数字鸿沟的美好未来。 薛虹 Verisign's and a couple of other testbeds on IDNs are the On 10/12/07, Danny Younger <dannyyounger@yahoo.com> wrote:
Roberto,
Speaking as someone that was on the customer service side with a registrar during the introduction of the VeriSign multilingual testbed, I can attest to the problems associated with "rushing forward" to accomodate demand before systems and policy are fully ready -- so I am more concerned about the consequences of rushing forward too quickly than I am about the consequences of necessary delay.
Allow me to direct your attention to the Minutes of the Meeting of the board's Executive Committee (30 January 2001) to better illustrate this point:
"Although over 800,000 names have been registered in VeriSign's testbed, there has been significant opposition to the manner in which the testbed was deployed. The IETF, in general, has criticized VeriSign for deploying the testbed before the IETF completed a Proposed Standard. Various Asian governments have complained that the introduction was done without the appropriate sensitivity to cultural values. Companies have complained that the introduction was done in a way that facilitated cybersquatting of their names."
"One problem that has arisen is the practice of some registrants to register multilingual names outside of the testbed. This has resulted in those registrants being able to register IDNs ahead of the announced schedule, resulting in those who relied on the schedule being blocked from registering those names and prompting significant complaints of unfairness. In addition to this "gold rush" phenomenon, some have complained that this practice has been used for multilingual cybersquatting. These effects have impaired the smooth deployment of VeriSign's multilingual testbed, and threaten in the longer term to disrupt development and deployment of IDN programs generally."
Yes, there can be consequences associated with further delay, but by the same token ICANN as technical manager of the DNS has a duty to "get it right". In my view that means waiting for the Standard.
regards, Danny
--- Roberto Gaetano <roberto@icann.org> wrote:
Danny Younger wrote:
In the IDN world, do we really want to see an advantage given to either IDN gTLDs or to the IDN ccTLDs by having one of these groups launched before the other?
Maybe. But on the other hand, playing the devil's advocate here, by artificially delaying one or the other of the IDN TLD category, aren't we really giving an unfair competitive advantage to the non-IDN TLDs?
And please be aware that I don't want to raise any polemic here, this is a genuine question. I am also a fan of "get a standard first", as you propose in the last paragraph of your message (below), but I am seriously concerned about the consequences of further delay.
Cheers, Roberto
"The IANA is not in the business of deciding what
is and what
is not a country's set of territorial scripts" -- this truly should be a matter for a standards body to determine through its processes. I remain of the view that ICANN, in its role as technical manager of the DNS, should only act when such a list is properly compiled.
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