I have reviewed the draft several times through its evolution, and am in agreement with almost all of the excellent statements of our common positions.  Kudos to the drafting team. 

I have one area of significant concern that I would ask to consider ‘tightening up’ – wrt to script mixing.

4.1.9.a  Seems to me that a registry indeed could enforce a rule that prohibits script mixing across all levels, under penalty of DNS suspension and eventually cancellation in the event of violation.  This may sound draconian, but I also see little if any potential legitimate use of mixed scripts across labels in an IDN TLD.  I would appreciate others’ views on that perception.  I do see such widespread legitimate use in existing ASCII TLDs where IDNs have been introduced at the second and higher levels.  If we would not ‘require’ that scripts not be mixed across levels, we should at least ‘strongly suggest’ that it not be allowed unless justified per 4.1.9.c (as I would edit it per below). 

4.1.9.b  Strong agreement with first sentence, but then we seem to leave much room for exceptions.  I would prohibit it altogether, but at least there should be a strong showing of ‘need’ to mix scripts within the registry-controlled label.  There also should be community involvement wrt to the ‘clear procedures’ we suggest must be implemented to avoid spoofing and user confusion.  Perhaps a joint working group should form to recommend or require best practices in this regard.  I would volunteer for such a group.

4.1.9.c  Can we clarify that the ‘special case’ we mean in part 1 is only the situation in part 2; in other words, combine these parts and delete the phrase ‘when justified’ from part 1?

I will not attend the sessions today, but ask you to consider these comments.

Thanks,

Mike

From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Gomes, Chuck
Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2008 7:21 PM
To: Council GNSO
Subject: [council] Repeat copy of draft response for this morning's meeting

Here is the version of the document we will be using this morning.  This is the same one I sent out a couple of weeks ago.

Chuck Gomes

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