http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-5-21feb11-en.htm Public Comment: Draft Proposal for the Study of Issues Related to the Delegation of IDN Variant TLDs 21 February 2011 Explanation/Background: The delegation and management of Variant TLDs remains an important issue. The ICANN community seeks to develop solutions to enable the delegation of Variant TLDs for the benefit of users in different regions. Today, ICANN is publishing for public comment a Draft Proposal for an IDN Variant Issues Project - a proposal for moving this work forward. On 25 September 2010 the Board of Directors of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) directed the CEO "to develop an issues report identifying what needs to be done with the evaluation, possible delegation, allocation and operation of gTLDs containing variant characters IDNs as part of the new gTLD process in order to facilitate the development of workable approaches to the deployment of gTLDs containing variant characters IDNs." (http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/resolutions-25sep10-en.htm-2.5) The proposed project work plan includes a series of case studies to investigate issues associated with delegating and using IDN variant TLDs in different communities, a staffing plan involving community members and a resource allocation plan. Importantly, this work will be coordinated with the Joint IDN Working Group and other community work on this topic. ICANN will also engage with the IETF to coordinate the consideration of technical issues associated with IDN variant TLDs delegation. ICANN is also planning to conduct a workshop at the San Francisco meeting to discuss the Draft Proposal. In this session, representatives from different language communities will be invited to provide an overview of the potential issues with IDN variant TLDs. Document Links: * Draft Proposal: IDN Variant Issues Project [PDF, 393 KB] The Process From Here: At the end of this Public Comment Forum period, ICANN will review the comments submitted and prepare a summary analysis of the various submissions, and consider changes to the work plan based on public comments. Deadline and How to Submit Comments: At the direction of the Board, ICANN is opening a 45-day public consultation forum, from 21 February through 6 April 2011 and invites community comments concerning any/all elements of the proposal for "IDN Variant Issues Project". The formal Public Comment Forum Box is located here: http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/public-comment-201104-en.htm#idn-vari... To submit comments: idn-variant-tld@icann.org To view comments: http://forum.icann.org/lists/idn-variant-tld/ Staff Member Responsible: Kurt Pritz Glen de Saint Géry GNSO Secretariat gnso.secretariat@gnso.icann.org http://gnso.icann.org