As a citizen of a country that has more than 400 languages (with 20 languages spoken by more than 1 million people each, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_India), written in 13 + distinct scripts, I fully agree with Vittorio. Delay in IDN TLDs is unfair to people for who english is not the first language, or an unknown language. Else internet gets viewed as a necessarily 'english' (roman script) resource and creates its own force for the digital divide. Regards, Guru _____________ Gurumurthy K IT for Change, Bangalore Bridging Development Realities and Technological Possibilities www.ITforChange.net -----Original Message----- From: alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Vittorio Bertola Sent: Friday, October 12, 2007 2:26 AM To: Danny Younger Cc: At-Large Worldwide Subject: Re: [At-Large] ALAC Statement for the ICANN Board Requestfor Responses Danny Younger ha scritto:

While everyone recognizes the need to move forward and expeditiously with the implementation of IDNs, shouldn't we be considering the implications of "unfair advantage" on the marketplace?

I think there is a cultural disconnect here. The Chinese, the Arabs, the Russians and all the other peoples who are eager to start using IDN TLDs are not particularly interested in competition (in fact, some of these countries have economies which are still heavily nationalised, especially in the telco sector). Removing one disadvantage that stifles diffusion of the Internet in their countries - the inability to use in URLs their script only - is much more important to them than any possible distortion in market competition, and I would find it unfair for ICANN to reverse this priority order. -- vb. Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu <-------- --------> finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/ <-------- _______________________________________________ ALAC mailing list ALAC@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac_atlarge-lists.icann.org At-Large Official Site: http://www.alac.icann.org ALAC Independent: http://www.icannalac.org