IDN top level domains

[kleszcz]

Any possibility of creating IDN top level domains?

Internationalised Domain Names Roadmap

 

[briman1970]

It looks pretty darn likely to me. In fact, this is one of the reasons I held off on buying IDNs for so long. I just knew they would eventually push this idea forward. If they don't accomplish it this go around, you can bet that it will be revisited in the future.

How worthless will our IDN .coms and .nets become if this comes to fruition?

 

[Jawn]

Im not sure what this means, could anyone explain abit shorter? what problems will occur?

 

[wasistdas]

This will kill internet, imho

 

[Rubber Duck]

It looks pretty darn likely to me. In fact, this is one of the reasons I held off on buying IDNs for so long. I just knew they would eventually push this idea forward. If they don't accomplish it this go around, you can bet that it will be revisited in the future.

How worthless will our IDN .coms and .nets become if this comes to fruition?

Well you misunderstood so you have blown it. IDN.com will be represented as IDN.IDN in many different guises. It will still be dot com and it will will resolve whichever way you type it in. Those that have invested are minted. Those that have held back have dipped out again!

This will kill internet, imho

How is that exactly? Would you care to share you thought processes, or do you just make wild statements?

Im not sure what this means, could anyone explain abit shorter? what problems will occur?

As anyone who has looked at this will already now IDN.com resolve through the DNS Root already. Full functionality depends on having a browser that support IDN. The browser converts the Unicode (Local Character Sets) to Punycode (ASCII encodement). The domains that are actually registered are the punycode version. The simply represent Chinese, Japanese, Arabic etc characters. At the moment only the generally recognised gTLDs, sTLDs and ccTLDs in Latin characters will resolve. If you put IDN.IDN into your browser it will send Punycode.Punycode to the Root, but the Root won't recognise .Punycode, so it won't resolve.

Two methods have been proposed for the introduction of IDN.IDN. One is to introduce Punycode strings into the Root. The second is the divert them to DNAME aliasing which is essentially a small look-up database that decides which of the existing gTLDs or ccTLDs those punycode strings corresponds to. It then forwards them to the Registry Servers for resolution.

The more likely to be implemented of the two is the DNAME system which has been proposed by Verisign. If this is introduced it does not involve the creation of an new Real Name but a myriad of Virtual Names which are aliased to Real Names. If this is introduced IDN.com holders are golden.

The other possibility is direct entry into the Root as Punycode. If this is implemented to ccTLD these will be paired and the IDN.com will simply be forwarded to IDN.ASCII. If this is also done for gTLDs, which frankly is not really that likely, a new extension would need to be created for each language for each TLD and all of the variants would need to be forwarded to the gTLDs. It has been suggest that the variants could be established as Registries in their own right, but frankly this is the most unlikely outcome.

Not only are the issues over Intellectual Property rights which the likes are Verisign are likely to defend aggresively, but their are huge problems relating to who would have control of the characters. Take Urdu for example. It is the official language of Pakistan, but more Indians use it than Pakistanis. The script and much vocabulary is shared with Farsi and Arabic. So who would have the rights to this, well search me, but you would be kicking off World War III.

In the short-term nothing is likely to happen but with advent of IE7 IDN.com is set to become a defacto standard with Verisign leading the charge in the IDN.IDN stakes. The smart money was on IDN.com about 12 months ago. There are plenty of opportunities in the secondary market which is still very cheap, but there is little of great value available for new regging.

 

[wasistdas]

IDN will split internet into national segments. No one in Thailand will have a chance even see Armenian sites, no one in India will have a chance to take a look at chinese sites, etc.

 

[Rubber Duck]

IDN will split internet into national segments. No one in Thailand will have a chance even see Armenian sites, no one in India will have a chance to take a look at chinese sites, etc.

Where on earth did you manage to drag up that "information"?

IDN is here and functioning as we speak and no such thing has happened.

It is true most Thais will have difficulty reading Armenian and vis-versa, but perhaps no more so than they would reading English.

IDN will not split the Root. Failure to accommodate the realistic aspirations of other cultures almost certainly will.

Most of the comment made on this subject to date unfortunately has been made by those that haven't a clue what they rattling on about.

 

[wasistdas]

Duck - you have? Tell us.

 

[kleszcz]

One of the problem is phishing website. Can you see the difference of two urls? It could happen based on top level domains. Do you think browser plugin and ICANN completely prevent a malicious attempt?

a.com and а.com (xn--80a.com)

 

[Rubber Duck]

Duck - you have? Tell us.

A unified Root is one where all domains within that root are unique and domains within that root resolve to the same website anywhere in the World. At the moment we have the ICANN DNS and we have a whole load of other roots that resolve through server systems that have absolutely nothing to do with ICANN. At the present time these alternative roots are of no great importance and domains only normally resolve elsewhere if you have a pluggin in you browser that enables that to happen. As most people do not use these pluggins or subscribed to alternative roots, this is currently not an issue. Some of these alternatives provide ASCII names some have IDN. This distinction is, however, not terribly important. What is important is that there is a unified global will to subscribe to and support a unified global internet.

Some countries such as China desperately need to be able navigate the internet in their own language. This doesn't mean you would not be able to cannot navigate in another language from that country. Normally, because most non-English keyboards still support Latin characters both are possible.

Discussions at IGF this last week have been very confusing because of the way they have been reported. IDN have actually been available for years and resolve perfectly well, provided you are not lumbered with IE6 which is a piece of legacy software from another age. Unfortunately, most of the World still is, but that is about to change very quickly.

What is under discussion at the present time is the bit to the right of the dot (unless you are Arabic or Jewish then it would be to the left in IDN). Many ccTLDs and several gTLDs include IDN within their registries. The discussion that are currently going on at ICANN. If ICANN manage to accommodate means of directing traffic that incorporate punycode strings to the right of the dot to the respective registries of the domains in question, then the Root will not be split. If they don't China and other may set up their own Root servers and run their own private intranet. Nobody really wants to do this and would seem that we are lucky in as much as, however, complexed ICANN are trying to make this sound, it really isn't gonig to be that hard. IDN.IDN will definitely be with us by the end 2007 and everyone will be happy. Of course there will be the usual arguments over who gets this set of characters and who gets that set of characters, but please do not loose any sleep over whether you will be able to access your favourite websites or not. In that respect nothing is likely to change.

One of the problem is phishing website. Can you see the difference of two urls? It could happen based on top level domains. Do you think browser plugin and ICANN completely prevent a malicious attempt?

a.com and а.com (xn--80a.com)

Yes, there is some confusion. Fortunately, only the Cyrillic version is available so no underhand Americans are going to be able to rob the hard working Russian of their honestly earned cash.

Phishing is not primarily an IDN problem although IDN will give rise to some opportunities. Phishing has for the most part has never involved IDN, but IDN will help to avoid much confusion in most of Asia, so for the most part it will help to reduce the phishing threat. Of cours that is not the US perspective. The Microsoft approach with IE7, however, is very balanced and it checks against a catelogue of rogue sites whether their Urls are based on IDN or not.

Mozilla on the other hand have a policy of just not resolving Verisign IDNs out of all the other registries on the Internet that support IDN. The problem basically arises because Verisign sees itself answerable to ICANN rather than Mozilla.

 

[paxton]

Duck,

I appreciate your posts and sharing of information. Clearly, you know what you are talking about and those of us trying to get a better handle on IDNs can learn something.

Cheers.

 

[wasistdas]

Ah, Duck, you opened my eyes, thank you, thank you

Well, Latin alphabet is the Earth dominating one. Most of people with literacy knows Latin letters, while not many ppl knows thai, khmer, burman, hindi, armenian, georgian, greek, jewish, arabic, farsi, cyrillic, alphabets, etc. I do not mention millions of chinese, japanese and korean hieroglyphs. I live in Ukraine which uses cyrillic. If you ask me how many IDNs are there I will tell you - zero. And none is planned to be set in .UA domain zone. In Russia there is a different situation - they are going to set IDN. One of their registrar even has fake top level set up. Of course, ppl will be confused there what to type in: a.ru, a.ру or a.py (paraguayan ccTLD). And I doubt that, say, you ever visit IDN top level ccTLD to see what sites are there, even if a big part of their content would be in English. That's the problem. ccTLD and parallel IDNgTLD will split the name segment out of the main part of internet. Not physically, but alphabetically. ICANN sees big $$$ before their eyes and arses, of course their are interested in set up as many TLDs as possible, they sell air and get real money. Why not. And they hardly think of how it will be "comfortable" to surf the net after all that IDN bullbit will be launched. Just my IMHO.

 

[briman1970]

Well you misunderstood so you have blown it. IDN.com will be represented as IDN.IDN in many different guises. It will still be dot com and it will will resolve whichever way you type it in. Those that have invested are minted. Those that have held back have dipped out again!

Just as abrasive as always RD. Don't assume that I have "blown it" just because I have misunderstood some of the details. I have 10-12 Japanese IDN .coms with very high OVT and 5-6 single character Kanji .coms with OVT in the low-mid thousands. I still consider them a risk and they haven't brought in more than 5-10 uniques per month each.

Ready... set... RANT! :hehe:

 

[Rubber Duck]

Just as abrasive as always RD. Don't assume that I have "blown it" just because I have misunderstood some of the details. I have 10-12 Japanese IDN .coms with very high OVT and 5-6 single character Kanji .coms with OVT in the low-mid thousands. I still consider them a risk and they haven't brought in more than 5-10 uniques per month each.

Ready... set... RANT! :hehe:

Well, I am pleased to see that your invested. It is, however, clear that you are rather hesitant otherwise you would have gone in deeper.

Now, is a good time to re-evaluate your strategy.

Don't forget some of those with the top ASCII domains did not necessarily pick them up as new registrations. However, if you are interested in the aftermarket, now is the time to look. Later, it will be preserve of those with very deep pockets.

 

[briman1970]

Well, I am pleased to see that your invested. It is, however, clear that you are rather hesitant otherwise you would have gone in deeper.

Not hesitant... just out of money.

 

[Rubber Duck]

Not hesitant... just out of money.

I think that is a common problem amongst the first wave of investors. Of course the picture will change when the traffic revenues come on stream.

 

[touchring]

Just as abrasive as always RD. Don't assume that I have "blown it" just because I have misunderstood some of the details. I have 10-12 Japanese IDN .coms with very high OVT and 5-6 single character Kanji .coms with OVT in the low-mid thousands. I still consider them a risk and they haven't brought in more than 5-10 uniques per month each.

Ready... set... RANT! :hehe:

Well, if you consider them a risk, maybe you can pass me the risk. I'll compensate you for your registration fees. :p

 

[Bramiozo]

IDN will split internet into national segments. No one in Thailand will have a chance even see Armenian sites, no one in India will have a chance to take a look at chinese sites, etc.

I agree insofar that domains are utilized and traded more apparently per language but that is merely the appearance since these national segments are already in existence through phonetic translations and number domains, as a crude replacement for what should be domains in the national language mind you.

May I also remind you that the market namepros serves is primarily english and that one of the largest domaining forums on the net is chinese . Of course you wouldn't have heard of it because it's not in your scope nor does it need to be, would it be different if the name was spelled in foreign characters ?

 

[Ronald Regging]

"Making changes to the root zone file is ICANN’s responsibility. But this is no simple task. If we get this wrong we could very easily and permanently break the Internet" Dr Twomey said."

My guess is they will screw this up just like they do everything else.

Imagine one day you wake up and the Internet is just completely gone. What a crazy concept. Then again, the stock market crash of '29 was a crazy concept as well. I wonder how many people would be jumping out of windows this time around.

 

[briman1970]

"Making changes to the root zone file is ICANN’s responsibility. But this is no simple task. If we get this wrong we could very easily and permanently break the Internet" Dr Twomey said."

My guess is they will screw this up just like they do everything else.

Imagine one day you wake up and the Internet is just completely gone. What a crazy concept. Then again, the stock market crash of '29 was a crazy concept as well. I wonder how many people would be jumping out of windows this time around.

I don't see how they could permanently break the net. Let's hope that was a gross overstatement. If the internet suddenly stopped functioning, it would be 100 times worse than the stockmarket crash. It would be a global financial catastrophe if it went down even for a few days.