NOTES | UAC | 27 November 2024 (14:00 UTC)

1. Welcome

Welcome by Abdalmonem

2. Admin matters

a. SoI

Fill out the ccNSO Statement of Interest form:  https://forms.gle/79Jw4wSnNhn5W4Z46

Check your SOI here:  https://community.icann.org/x/doAFEg

Consult the ccNSO SOI Guideline: https://ccnso.icann.org/sites/default/files/field-attached/ccnso-internal-procedure-general-soi-coi-21sep23-en.pdf

2. Review workplan

UAC Work Plan, March 2024  https://community.icann.org/x/UIfxDg

Workplan contains a list of work items to be addressed in In the near or immediate future, and a list of items and mid- to long term items

Bart: await feedback from ICANN82, before including any additional work items

Slides from ICANN 81, where work plan was discussed as well:

ICANN81 | UAC | 9 Nov 2024

See also PDF circulated prior to the meeting

3. Themes for the consultation on UA awareness/readiness

See materials shared prior to the meeting:

• Identify risks and blockers (PDF)

a. Format of consultation

Bart: attempt to identify a few themes. Look for people who could provide a testimonial, and questions related to these themes and topics. 

2 motivators for IDNs (2024 IDN World Report)

• Link between IDNs and UA acceptance. 

Regina: we were asking registries how they see the awareness among end-users, and the support by registrars. We added these questions simply to understand what is useful, how to move forward. Good to move forward for the next year. 

Bart: from IDNs to UA acceptance

Abdalmonem suggested the other way around. 

As a ccTLD, you want to register domains

Valuable to look into the numbers. 

Not just the IDN World Report

Domain name registration numbers provide context. Suggestion to use this as an intro the session, when we do the consultation. Present the underlying data to date. To avoid that it becomes a discussion of concepts, and nothing else.  

Why UA readiness? Why is it important

Regina: good idea to have a better understanding of the blockers and motivators

Just returned from SEEDIG. In the region there is a lot of focus on IDNS. serbian registry is active. But if you do not have enough content in the smaller languages, it is an issue for the learning models. E.g. field of AI. should the registries promote more content in the languages

Bart: general understanding. How does the landscape look like? What you just mentioned could be a nice testimonial. A motivator. Inspiration for the discussion

Regina: agree.

Bart: focus on one motivator. Then have a series of questions and discussion points. 

Abdalmonem: I am asked to present on the importance of UA from ccTLD and gTLD perspective to government representatives. 11% of the ccTLDs, only recorded unicode at IANA.

For UA, it could be non-latin.

Ask the participants, who are the majority of ccTLDs, what are the barriers that prevent them from not hosting IDN levels. Share knowledge and motivation. Who do not have levels in IDN. 

11% is a small part. Needs to be bigger. 

Bart: how do you want to structure this?

There are many materials regarding motivators. 

See page 1 of the doc. Barriers for UA readiness

How does this relate to Abdalmonem’s story?

Abdalmonem: get more international customers. E.g. tanzania. E-mail systems must have different languages. Email as one of the applications. Maybe ccTLDs have barriers to host second level in chinese. What are the blockers? What are the motivations?

Bart: registry level

But that is a different thing. Regina pointed to it. Content as one of major issues

Abdalmonem: can siri understand that i want to go to a french domain name?

Not a matter of content. We are going beyond this. 

Bart: do you agree that the focus of the session should be on motivators and barriers?  is this a good way to interest people on UA readiness?

Green ticks in the room

Bart: Should we start with the current state of play? Have a factual intro?

Green ticks in the room

Regina: yes, good to start with it. It informs people who are not deeply involved. 

Bart: easy mentimeter question. This is the current state of play. Ice breaker question: how ready is your TLD?

Good to hear the group agrees with the main structure for the session

Another way to look at it, is to check the value chain analysis.

We supported another group, that did a rudimentary value chain analysis

Bart: what does it mean to be UA ready as an operator, if the additional chain is not ready? Puts things into perspective. We had some data from icann global support on complaints. We might do something similar for UA at ICANN82. Different context, but brainstorming that this might fit into the intro as well. 

Any thoughts?

Maria: i really like the scheme. Think it will be useful. What do we want to get out of the session? While we talk about motivators and barriers, those that are not yet interested, might see more barriers than motivators. Too many actors that need to become UA ready before the registry. In the IDN world report, UA readiness look at the readiness by others. When it is achieved by others, IDN operators will win and achieve their goals. We have 2 different cctld operators:

• Those who are already involved and understand they need to do something. They want to sell their products, which are well supported in the whole infrastructure on the internet
• Users buy domain names. They are not interested in growing idn registries
• Those that do not want to have idns. They do not believe they are needed. 

Bart: consultation of level of UA readiness of the people in the room. And maybe also on strategies. 

The scheme i shared is on strategies. Where to focus on?

Abdalmonem: regarding what Maria mentioned. A ccTLD must be UA ready.

Bart: why?

Abdalmomnen: 3R model. I need to have my email address in arabic. Form for registrar should be ready. Protocol between the registry and registrar needs to be ready. Protocol needs to work. Full environment needs to be ready. 

Ask question: if you are a asci cctld, are you accepting unicode? If no, why not?

Bart: the use of must is very normative.  Not all ccTLDs will accept the message, if stated like that.

Maria: any registry should be able to work with EAI. accept e-mail addresses for registrars and registrants

Ask the audience: motivate and explain that we want them to ua ready?

Bart: if you say, you must be ready. Why do you consult?

Major point by Maria. We want to know why they are not ready? How to motivate them to become ready?

Maria: i saw that among the motivators we mentioned “getting international users”. From what we see, the idns grow better in countries where local users use idn domain names and the local language. Market that registries and registrars can cover. 

Bart: seems you have a different experience, than what is included in the world report

Bart: local registrations (green), or international ones (red)?

Regina: no middle ground

Maria: good to discuss with audience

Abdalmomen: internation. From experience here in Egypt. See our university. How could the russian go for admission to class at university? Governmental department. Have more customers. So it is business. The local customer consumes 45% from Egypt. Others are international customers. 

Vadim: local or international oriented model. It depends on the circumstances of the business model of the national ccTLD. In our region we have restriction about foreign registrants. Other ccTLDs have a different approach. E.g. .tv hard to divide: for a local model? Or not? 

Bart: what should be the focus? Local market. If the market for IDNs is limited, the motivation for .nl is limited. It is one of the factors, your registration model and your focus. 

Bart: regarding the motivators, look at the customer focus. Local or international? Script use. 2 testimonials:

• One international
• One local

Could include something like what Vadim mentioned regarding policies

Abdalmonem: brands. 

Bart: could be, could be your story. Lots of variety in the models. 

Bart: do something similar regarding main barriers. Have a story. How is it dealt with? How does it affect the ccTLD?

2. Trends form the UA readiness survey

2. Trends from IDN World Report

4. Next meetings

11 December 2024

22 January 2025

5 February 2025

19 February 2025

ICANN82 (8-13 March 2025)

5. AOB

Abdalmonem: like the DASC workshop at ICANN 81. Different actors in cctlds. Address all items raised by maria, regina etc. adoption UA. Like slides used by DASC. I prepared some pages. Hope to share by next time. DASC delivered the message. I know now how to proceed, in case of ransomware.

Target is the Oman meeting

Joke: ransomware was mentioned?  That workshop was prepared by TLD-OPS, not DASC. DASC deals with DNS Abuse.

6. Adjourn

Thanks all. bye

Joke Braeken

joke.braeken@icann.org