Dear PDP WG members,
In response to the question from Amr today about whether there is WHOIS-related PDP (or other) work that may be addressing the same issues as the PDP WG please see below the list of current and recently completed work. Staff have presented some of this
information at various times in the formation of this PDP WG, and via presentations from Margie Milam and Steve Sheng at a previous meeting, but it appears that it would be helpful to put it all in one place to avoid any confusion. One thing to note is that
following the Board resolutions on WHOIS in November 2012 a large number of projects (both PDP and non-PDP) were launched and the Board envisioned that these would proceed concurrently, rather than consecutively. See the helpful blog from Margie Milam on
all of the WHOIS-related developments at:
http://blog.icann.org/2013/03/whois-whats-to-come/.
As I noted on today's call, this PDP WG is the only PDP that addresses the specific issues relating to the translation and transliteration of contact information. The work of this PDP WG will be taken into consideration in conjunction with the Board-initiated
PDP on gTLD directory services, which is tied to the work of the Expert Working Group on gTLD Directory Services (see below). The final report of the EWG will form the Final Issue Report for that Board-initiated PDP.
The Expert Working Group that is defining requirements for internationalized registration data and a corresponding data model for gTLD registries (#3 below) is the group that Jim Galvin is leading. The work of that group is tied closely to that of this
PDP WG. Both relate to item #13 in the chart in Margie's blog, which is taken from the Board's work plan. That plan states, "ICANN will form a community working group to determine appropriate internationalized domain name registration data requirements based
on requirements set forth in GNSO internationalized registration data working Group final Report." The work this PDP WG will be considered by this EWG so the two groups will coordinate closely.
As you can see, these efforts are very much intertwined. Policies resulting from this PDP WG (if any) will be key elements in future policies relating to the development of a new gTLD directory service, in defining requirements for internationalized registration
data, and in the development of the data model for gTLD registries.
Please let me know if you have further questions.
Best regards,
Julie
Julie Hedlund, Policy Director
Recently Completed Work:
The GNSO Council requested an Issue Report on 'thick' Whois at its meeting on 22 September 2011 noting that the Issue Report should 'not only consider a possible requirement of 'thick' WHOIS for all incumbent gTLDs in the context of IRTP, but should
also consider any other positive and/or negative effects that are likely to occur outside of IRTP that would need to be taken into account when deciding whether a requirement of 'thick' WHOIS for all incumbent gTLDs would be desirable or not'.
Current Work:
1. Study Group to Evaluate Available Solutions for the Submission and Display of Internationalized Contact Data.
The purpose of the study is to:
- Document the submission and display practices of internationalized registration data at a representative set of gTLD and ccTLD registries and registrars.
- Investigate and document how other e-merchants or web sites manage internationalized contact data.
- Consider and assess the cost and functionality of commercial, open source, or other known but as yet not widely implemented solutions for 1) transliterating internationalized contact information to US-ASCII, 2) translating
internationalized contact information to English, 3) transcribing internationalized contact information to US-ASCII, or 4) a mixture of translation, transliteration and transcription.
- Consider and assess the accuracy implications for transliteration and translation of the internationalized contact data
- Based on practices documented in 1 and understanding the issues raised in 3 and 4 and best practices by other e-merchants in 2, summarize some common best practices registry/registrar could do to minimize these variations, if translation and/or transliteration
is deemed necessary.
The study team is currently on the first task, and has prepared a registry and registrar survey to complete. Since this group is
closely working in this area, we appreciate very much if you have any feedback on these survey questions. Such feedback will help us to make sure we ask the right questions.
13 December 2012 – Fadi Chehadé,
ICANN's President and CEO, announces the creation of an Expert Working Group on
gTLD Directory
Services. This first step in fulfilling the
ICANN Board's directive to help redefine the purpose
and provision of
gTLD registration data will provide a foundation to help the
ICANN community
(through the Generic Names Supporting Organization,
GNSO) create a new global policy for
gTLD directory
services. Interested individuals are invited to indicate their interest in serving as volunteer working group members.
3. Expert Working Group to Define Requirements for Internationalized Registration Data and Corresponding Data Model for gTLD Registries
As part of the process to implement WHOIS review team recommendations related to Internationalized Domain Name registration data requirements,
ICANN seeks
volunteers who are community representatives with expertise in linguistics, IDNA, policy and registry/registrar operations to participate in a working group to determine appropriate Internationalized Domain Name registration data requirements and data model
for Registration Data Directory Services (aka WHOIS services). The result of the
WG product will go through a public comment process to
ensure broad input is received. It will form the basis for further policy development and/or contractual framework for generic Top-level domains, as well as ideally becoming a best practice for country code top-level domains.