IDN Liaison Report April 2009

ALAC IDN Liaison's Report, April 27, 2009
The following is an update on developments related to IDN:
Governments' and Country Code Managers' Interest in the fast track process
Last year, ICANN sent letters to countries and territories informing them about the Fast
Track process — where a limited number of internationalized domain names will be added
to the Internet – and asked them to indicate their level of interest. This is an update on
that process.
A total of 252 letters were sent to national governments, and copied to country code toplevel
domain managers. So far we have received 74 responses and a small number of
respondents requested confidentiality.
Out of these (not counting confidential requests), 31 said they were interested in
participating in the Fast Track process, representing a total of 15 different languages. The
remaining expressed they were not interested in participating at this time or indicated that
they would not be eligible to obtain an IDN ccTLD under the process
More details on the response from countries at page http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-10feb09-en.htm
Fast-track IDN ccTLD Activities
The IDNC working group, whose formation was approved by the ICANN Board during the
ICANN meeting in Los Angeles, finished their recommendations to create a fast track
approach to introduce a limited number of IDN ccTLDs. The IDNC working group final report
was approved by the ICANN Board during the ICANN Paris meeting, where the ICANN Board
also directed ICANN staff to commence implementation of this process.
The fast-track process focuses on meeting a near-term demand and on gaining experience
with the implementation of a limited number of IDN ccTLDs associated with the ISO 3166-1
two-letter codes (IDN ccTLDs). In developing their recommendations the IDNC working
group paid special attention to:
• The overarching requirement to preserve the security and stability of the DNS;
• Compliance with the IDNA protocols;
• Input and advice from the technical community in respect to the implementation of
IDNs;
• Current practices for the delegation of ccTLDs
With the approval of the IDNC Final Report by the ICANN Board of Directors, ICANN is now
at a transition point, focusing on developing implementable solutions to the IDNC
recommendations.
Initiation of IDN ccPDP by ccNSO Council
At its meeting on 7 April 2009 the ccNSO Council initiated the IDN country code Policy
Development Process [PDF, 45K] (IDN ccPDP). The purpose of the IDN ccPDP is to develop and
recommend to the ICANN Board a policy for the selection and delegation of IDN ccTLDs and
identify, and if any recommend such, changes needed to Article IX and annexes in
connection with such policy. The IDN ccPDP Issue Report, including the PDP timeline is
available here[PDF, 109K].
Proposal for a new IDN gTLD constituency
ICANN has received a Petition and proposed Charter for a new Internationalized Domain
Name Top Level Domain (IDNgTLD) Constituency (IDNgTLDC) within the Commercial
Stakeholders Group (CSG). As the original Notice of Intent to Form the IDNTLD Constituency
(NOIF) explains, this Constituency is to primarily represent the views and interests of those
who have been and/or are engaged and/or intend to be involved in the advocacy,
promotion, provision, implementation, popularization, research and development of IDN
gTLDs on the Internet. The IDNgTLD Constituency is to provide a home for both commercial
stakeholders (and non-commercial stakeholders who may wish to join) catering to the needs
of about 4 billion people who will be served by IDNgTLDs, of the 2008 World Population of
some 6.5 billion humans. And of the 1.58 billion Internet users in 2008, about 720 million
users come from countries/communities that need to be more properly served by IDNgTLDs.
ICANN has opened this for public comments from 21 April 2009 through 20 May 2009. The
formal Public Comment Forum Box is located here: http://www.icann.org/en/publiccomment/
public-comment-200905.html#idngtld To submit comments: idngtld-petition@icann.org
The Arabic Script IDN Working Group in Jordan
A year ago, PIR,Afilias Limited and UN-ESCWA had facilitated the first ASIWG meeting to
coincide with the ICANN regional meeting in Dubai. This was the 4th meeting of ASIWG as a
continuation to the efforts started earlier regarding the formulation of guidelines for the
use of Arabic script in Internet addresses, namely Domain Names. Following this, two more
meetings have happened and the fourth meeting 4th meeting of the Arabic Script IDN
Working Group was held recently at Amman, Jordan. The “Arabic Script in Internationalized
Domain Names - Working Group” (ASIWG) is an autonomous and self organized group formed
by regional and global Internet key players interested in the integration of the Arabic script
in Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). This working group gathers ICT experts from the
Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Jawi communities as they all use the Arabic script in their
languages, Internet registries and global organizations. The attendees from Jordan,
Pakistan, Egypt, Malaysia, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Somalia, and US reflected the diversity and
richness of the Arabic script base languages (Farsi, Urdu, Sindhi, Jawi, Arabic etc) .
Some of the most engaged discussions and debates centered on defining guidelines for
certain language characters. For example, there are characters that might cause visual
confusion and hence lead to increased probability of phishing and customer confusion. The
bulk of the deliberations were on how to handle the challenge: Should these characters be
disallowed? And if so - should it be done at the protocol level or at the registry level?
Liaison's Note: The liaison seeks to be formally connected to all IDN related working
groups within ICANN and to the various constituencies working on IDN with a view to
effectively carry out his responsibilities.
Sivasubramanian Muthusamy
ALAC IDN Liaision.
Isolatedn at gmail dot com
February 27, 2009.