Summary
Board calls on VeriSign to consult with IETF and IAB to promote technical standardization of testbeds and to conduct the testbed in compliance with agreements with ICANN; urges registrars to protect interests and expectations of domain-name holders and affected third parties in handing registrations within the testbed; and directs President and staff to investigate and report whether addenda to agreements with VeriSign are required to facilitate desired testbed standardization.

Text

Whereas, Verisign Global Registry Services has announced a multilingual testbed under the .com, .net, and .org top-level domains to be available for all accredited registrars passing technical certification;

Whereas, ICANN recognizes that it is important that the Internet evolve to be more accessible to those who do not use the ASCII character set;

Whereas, the internationalization of the Internet's domain name system must be accomplished through standards that are open, non-proprietary, and fully compatible with the Internet's existing end-to-end model and that preserve globally unique naming in a universally resolvable public name space;

Whereas, constructive experimentation with extensions to the domain name system to support multilingual names should be encouraged, provided it is done in a manner consistent with promoting responsible standardization, it avoids disrupting the stability of the Internet or the interoperability of Internet services, and its experimental character is clearly understood by all affected;

RESOLVED [00.77] that the ICANN Board calls on Verisign Global Registry Services to consult closely with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Architecture Board concerning the design and implementation of the testbed, with the goal that the testbed should promote, rather than complicate, technical standardization efforts in this area;

RESOLVED [00.78] that the ICANN Board calls on Verisign Global Registry Services to conduct the testbed in full compliance with its agreements with ICANN, including by providing equivalent access within the testbed to all ICANN-accredited registrars that meet reasonable technical-qualification requirements;

RESOLVED [00.79] that the ICANN Board urges participating registrars to handle registrations within the testbed in a manner that protects the interests and expectations of both domain-name holders and affected third parties;

RESOLVED [00.80] that the President and staff are directed to investigate and report to the Board whether any addenda to the agreements with Verisign Global Registry Services are appropriate to facilitate the operation of the testbed in a manner that protects those interests and expectations, including provisions that facilitate evolution of the testbed to match evolving standardization efforts within the IETF.

Implementation Actions

  • Consult with IETF and IAB concerning design and implementation of testbed.
    • Responsible entity: Verisign
    • Due date: None provided
    • Completion date: 30 January 2001
  • Investigate and report to Board whether addenda to registry agreement are needed.
    • Responsible entity:  ICANN staff
    • Due date: None provided
    • Completion date: 30 January 2001

Other Related Resolutions

Additional Information

  • Findings from the VeriSign consultation with IETF and IAB and ICANN staff findings concerning addenda to the agreements were presented to the Exectuive Committee on 30 January 2001:  http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/minutes-30jan01.htm.
  • The resolution does not address funding for the items identified herein.

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