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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