Hello All, Below is the output of our brainstorming session on possible issues to think about with respect to IDNs that was held with members of the President's Advisory Committee for IDNs (IDN-PAC) (Pat Kane, Ram Mohan, Cary Karp) on Sunday afternoon. Regards, Bruce Tonkin gTLD operator wishes to introduce an IDN based string that relates to the gTLD Another party may wish to introduce an IDN based string that relates to the gTLD in competition with the gTLD. ccTLD operator wishing to introduce an IDN based string that relates to the ccTLD. - the IDN based string may or may not relate to an official language within the country related to the ccTLD - Languages can be represented in multiple scripts (e.g Japanese language) - What is the accepted representation of the country name in non-ASCII characters - No IDN based standard that is equivalent to the ISO list for two or three letter country Another party may wish to introduce an IDN based string that relates to the ccTLD in competition with the ccTLD. That party may or may not be located within the geographic boundary associated with the ccTLD. A party wishes to introduces a new IDN string with no relationship to an existing TLD. A party wishes to introduce a set of strings using different characters including IDN that relate to the same purpose (e.g to allow a TLD to be used in several languages at once). Could be different implementation of IDNs at the second level that may or may not conform with the IETF standards or ICANN's IDN Guidelines. Make sure that cultural, language and local issues are addressed properly and by qualified people. Make sure new IDN TLDs are not a failure and what precautions will be taken. Selection and allocation policy for IDN strings. Dispute resolution process for IDN strings. Does a registrant in ASCII TLD have a prior right to register in the IDN version. Would current domain name holders feel that are forced to register in the IDN equivalent for brand protection. Does an intellectual property rights holder have a prior right to register in the IDN version. What are the economic implications. Need to focus on user experience, user expectations, and user need with respect to timeliness. May not be possible to get it perfect initially. Even though ASCII encodings of IDNs may be introduced into the domain name strings - there are still issues in using domain names in email and websites where other multiple languages often handled via UNICODE. End user confusion can result from alternative roots, alternative TLD operators, alternative registrants, alternative destinations for resolution. Consider from the broadest possible view.