hi all, i ran inter Peter Jennings at breakfast yesterday and he strongly encouraged me to take a look at the recently published report on the user experience implications of active variant TLDs. now that i've read it, i strongly encourage *you* to read it as there are profound implications for our members (who will very likely be the front-line point of support when many of these issues arise for our customers). mikey here's a link to the public-comment page https://www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment/variant-ux-18jan13-en.htm here's a chunk out of the table of contents just to give you a taste of what i'm talking about; 5. Challenges Related to Active Variant TLDs........................................................................ 26 ] 5.1. Challenges with the Use of Variants............................................................................. 27 • 5.1.1. Different Users cannot find the complete set of variants for a primary label....... 27 • 5.1.2. Variants not intuitive............................................................................................. 27 • 5.1.3. Variants are delegated independently ................................................................... 28 • 5.1.4. Variants defined inconsistently............................................................................. 28 • 5.1.5. Variants displayed inconsistently ......................................................................... 28 • 5.1.6. Variants cannot be input by the user..................................................................... 29 • 5.1.7. Unable to distinguish specific variants ................................................................. 29 • 5.1.8. Identifier not bound to all variants........................................................................ 29 • 5.1.9. Accessibility and privacy impacted ...................................................................... 29 • 5.1.10. Variants not searchable ......................................................................................... 30 • 5.1.11. Search rankings unpredictable .............................................................................. 30 • 5.1.12. Search optimization affected by variants .............................................................. 30 • 5.1.13. Variants not part of URL/URI/IRI ........................................................................ 31 • 5.1.14. Variants cause session re-establishment ............................................................... 31 5.2. Challenges in the Registration and Management of Variants....................................... 31 • 5.2.1. Management across IDN TLDs inconsistent ........................................................ 32 • 5.2.2. Registration for SLDs across TLDs inconsistent.................................................. 32 • 5.2.3. Inconsistent association of ASCII and IDN TLDs ............................................... 32 • 5.2.4. Software support inadequate................................................................................. 33 • 5.2.5. Registration system not straightforward to localize.............................................. 33 • 5.2.6. Registration information inconsistent ................................................................... 34 • 5.2.7. Trademark protection tracking complex ............................................................... 34 • 5.2.8. Trademark protection dispute process complex ................................................... 34 5.3. Challenges in the Configuration and Diagnostics of Variants...................................... 35 • 5.3.1. Software configuration not supported................................................................... 35 • 5.3.2. Cannot associate variants for configuration.......................................................... 35 • 5.3.3. Compounded certificate management................................................................... 36 • 5.3.4. DNSSEC validation inconsistent .......................................................................... 36 • 5.3.5. Log and history searching does not match............................................................ 36 • 5.3.6. Network traffic statistics incomplete .................................................................... 37 • 5.3.7. Caching infrastructure inefficient ......................................................................... 37 • 5.3.8. Diagnostic and troubleshooting tools incompatible.............................................. 37 • 5.3.9. Forensics significantly more complicated ............................................................ 38 5.4. Traceability between User Principles and Variant Challenges..................................... 39 PHONE: 651-647-6109, FAX: 866-280-2356, WEB: www.haven2.com, HANDLE: OConnorStP (ID for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)