One example that was recently pointed out to me is a shortened version of Thailand. Evidently, when abbreviated as two internationalized characters it becomes the Thai word for "free". A Thai-script IDN ccTLD for Thailand could then possibly conflict out ".free" as a gTLD and its IDN foreign language equivalents. Tim -------- Original Message -------- Subject: RE: [council] RE: IDN ccTLD Fast Track implementation plan council comments From: "Edmon Chung" <edmon@dotasia.org> Date: Fri, January 02, 2009 8:34 pm To: "'Gomes, Chuck'" <cgomes@verisign.com>, "'Council GNSO'" <council@gnso.icann.org> 1. The headings were taken directly from the Draft Implementation Plan, see http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/idn-cctld-implementation-plan-... (page 26) 2. Similarly, that was taken from the Draft Implementation Plan (as above), Module 7, Discussion of Additional Topics: " This Module 7 contains a description of issues and topics that are relevant parts of the Draft Implementation Plan, but were not (fully) covered in the IDNC Final Report. It also includes the list of outstanding issues which the ICANN Board directed staff to produce in advance of the ICANN Cairo meeting in November 2008." The intent of including all of the topics was to make a point that some of these "Additional Topics" may/should require further discussion by the community because it could potentially have broader impact and was not already covered by the IDNC. Also, just because it is restricted to a meaningful representation of a country name, it does not I think automatically mean that it will never conflict with a potential/existing gTLD string OR a then existing ccTLD. Edmon From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Gomes, Chuck Sent: Saturday, January 3, 2009 8:01 AM To: Edmon Chung; Council GNSO Subject: [council] RE: IDN ccTLD Fast Track implementation plan council comments Edmon, Good job. I have just two comments: It seems to me that "Compliance with consensus policies." is not a very good heading for item 4, dealing with security & stability. Would this be better: "Ensuring security and stability'?Is item 5 really a concern in the fast tract if the IDN ccTLD fast track names are restricted to country names as defined by the IDNC? It seems to me that it might not be. Chuck From: Edmon Chung [mailto:edmon@registry.asia] Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 12:35 AM To: gnso-idnc-initial@icann.org; 'Council GNSO' Subject: IDN ccTLD Fast Track implementation plan council comments Hi Everyone, Apologies for the delay on this matter, please find attached the draft for the council comments on the Draft IDN ccTLD Fast Track implementation plan. The document is mainly separated into 2 parts: (A) response on Module 7, where 5 open questions were raised (B) reemphasizing some of the issues raised previously For (A) the 5 open questions listed in Module 7 were: 1. Ensuring ongoing compliance with the IDN technical standards, including the IDNA protocol and the IDN Guidelines. 2. Possible establishment of financial contributions. 3. IDN ccTLD operator association to the ICANN community. 4. Compliance with consensus policies 5. Prevention of contention issues with existing TLDs and those under application in the gTLD process. The draft mainly extracted statements from previous documents to respond to the topics, but have also emphasized that we may require much broader input from the community on the issues because they are largely new considerations not specifically discussed previously. In particular, 3 & 4, and some respects 2 & 5. For (B) 3 items were specifically reemphasized: 1. Lack of structure for implementation in the situation where a proposed Fast Track IDN ccTLD string is not listed in the UNGEGN manual (i.e. not in a particular authoritative list) 2. Lack of clarity in the process for linguistic process check and confirmation of a requested string 3. Lack of consideration for avoiding confusingly similar strings Comments/thoughts welcome. Since, the deadline for comments to the draft implementation plan is Jan 9, in view of time, perhaps we can have a discussion on the council list and on our meeting on Jan 8 to finalize our response. Edmon PS. Happy New Year! :-)