Dear colleagues,

In the last few months, a member of the ICANN community raised concerns about risks inherent in the delegation of IDNs — particularly IDN variant TLDs — with emphasis on the risks of delegating IDN TLDs before the completion of ICANN’s ongoing IDN Variant TLD Project or wider experience of IDN deployment in other domains.

As part of its on-going work to assess risks and risk mitigation strategies, ICANN commissioned an expert study to evaluate these concerns within specific terms of reference.

The expert study identified ten risks, rated on probability of occurrence (high, medium, low and near zero), severity if it does happen (high, medium, low) and the type of risk represented (security and stability, user experience, and legal).

A key conclusion from the expert study is the following: “None of these risks are very likely to come to pass, but some are moderately likely. All risks that have a high severity are of low risk of happening.”

The report is attached and also available on the ICANN IDN Variant TLD Program Reports page.

Best regards,

Naela Sarras

Manager, IDN TLDs

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)