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Report of the Internationalized Domain Names Working Group–Responses to Survey C

Posted: 28 August 2001



Appendix—Responses to Survey C: Current Services

1. What IDN services do you currently offer? Please provide materials (such as promotional materials or advertisements) describing these services. How much do you charge for these services, and how do these prices compare with the prices for the non-IDN equivalent?

WALID

WALID is currently offering a number of products and services aimed at the internationalized domain name marketplace:

  • WALID WorldConnect™ -- Resolution client software available for free download. Enables direct, transparent resolution of IDNs on end-user systems using ASCII-Compatible Encoding transformations;
  • WALID WorldDomain™ -- Registration services for fully multilingual domain names (i.e. [IDN].[IDN]) at www.walid.com. Includes WHOIS lookup capabilities;
  • WALID WorldTools™ -- Toolkit to support registrars, registries, and system administrators to enable support of multilingual domain names in their systems;
  • WALID WorldApp™ -- Bundled as part of WorldConnect, WorldApp enables application developers to incorporate IDN transformations directly into their applications;
  • WALID WorldCC - Packaged application to support immediate deployment of IDNs for smaller ccTLDs;
  • WALID WorldRegistrar™ -- Packaged middleware and database components which provides a full suite of services and technology to support a multilingual domain name registrar business;
  • WALID WorldRegistry™ -- Similar to WorldRegistrar, but providing the middleware and database components to support the operation of a multilingual registry.

For WALID's [IDN].[IDN] registration services our prices are competitive with the current pricing of these services in the industry as a whole.

Verisign GRS

VeriSign Global Registry Services (VeriSign GRS) opened the Internationalized Domain Name testbed for registrations on November 10, 2000. The IDN testbed is described on the VeriSign Global Registry Services web site .There are no advertisements or promotional materials other than the web site.

VeriSign GRS collects $6 per year from registrars for each IDN domain registration, the same as for all other domain name registrations.

NSI Registrar (Verisign) The Network Solutions Registrar (NSI Registrar), a division of VeriSign, offers IDN domain names via the http://global.networksolutions.com/en_US/purchasing/welcome.jhtml web site, which can be reached via a link from the http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US web site. A full description of the services offered are detailed at the web sites, as well as a listing of the pricing structure.
Neteka Neteka provides the software for enabling the management, registration and resolution of multilingual domain names. Neteka itself is not a registry or registrar of domain names.
Tonga The .TO ccTLD does not at present offer IDN services.
JPNIC We, JPNIC (Japan Information Center) and JPRS (Japan Registry Service Co., Ltd.), jointly provide a Registry service where a Japanese Domain Name can be registered as a second level domain such as "XXXX.JP", where XXXX stands for Japanese character string where ASCII characters are also allowed as a portion. We also provide a Registrar service for "XXXX.JP", which competes with about 450 .JP registrars in Japan. There are no English materials of service description at this point of time. The prices of the registration are the same as the ASCII string domain name registration.
TWNIC

(1) TWNIC offers Chinese characters IDN registration service for [IDN] .tw and IDN dispute resolution service.

(2) The related materials describing these services is on TWNIC web site:

TWNIC home page:
URL: http://www.twnic.net.tw/English/Index.htm
IDN registration service:
URL: http://www.twnic.net.tw/English/DN_01.htm
IDN registration service FAQ:
URL: http://www.twnic.net.tw/English/DN_04.htm
Dispute resolution service:

(3) URL: http://www.twnic.net.tw/English/DN_02.htm

(4) TWNIC does not charge for IDN registration service so far.

i-DNS.net a.) Multilingual Domain Name Technology Provider and Registry

Multilingual.com Technology

Multilingual Technology

Multilingual ccTLD Technology

Multilingual non-commercial ccTLD Technology

i-DNS.net is strictly a technology provider, and Registry (for [IDN.IDN] names). It works with Registrar Partners in each country to deploy its technology. i-DNS.net does not dictate the pricing policies of its partners and our partners determine their fees according to operational costs and market forces.

b.) Registry Operator - Managed Registry Services

This service empowers registry administrators to outsource their back-end registry operations to i-DNS.net. This allows the administrators to better focus on core marketing and policy control within its own namespace.

c.) Registrar Services - Registrar-in-a-Box

Registrar Services that help registrars kick-start and technically manage their registrar businesses.

Screenshots (2 of our service adopters, KY Corporation and Sterling Holdings)



d.) E-mail Services

This service offering encompasses a comprehensive suite of standards-based messaging solutions to complement multilingual domain name offerings and to provide support for multilingual e-mail addresses.

Information on costing is company confidential.

Status Report: Operator-based response

 

2. Are you registering [IDN].gTLD, [IDN].ccTLD, or [IDN].[IDN]? Please describe any other domain names you may be registering.

WALID Currently, WALID provides registrations only for names in the [IDN].[IDN] namespace, and we are working with many ccTLDs to enable IDNs resolution for names in their registries as well. In addition, we have applied to ICANN for SRS Registrar accreditation, and will be registering domain names in the [IDN].{com,net,org} TLDs as part of the VGRS multilingual testbed activities, as well as traditional Latin character domain names.
Verisign GRS VeriSign GRS is registering an IDN in the com, net and org gTLDs. As of May 7, 2001 an IDN is delegated as a third level domain in the above three gTLDs. VeriSign GRS is not registering [IDN].ccTLD, or [IDN].[IDN].
NSI Registrar (Verisign) Registrations are in the form IDN.gTLD, with the gTLDs being .com, .net, and org.
Neteka Neteka clients are registering [IDN].gTLD, [IDN].ccTLD names as well as [IDN].SLD names. All of which fall within the ICANN hierarchy. Neteka believes that maintaining the integrity of the DNS is very important and therefore looks to introduce multilingual names on SLD or 3rdLD levels at this point.
Tonga None of the above at present. We will be offering [IDN].TO in due course.
JPNIC We register [IDN].ccTLD.
TWNIC TWNIC is providing [IDN].tw registration service right now.
i-DNS.net

i-DNS.net does not offer registration services, but deploys its IDN technology via its partners. Our technology encompasses all the above types of IDN. For a listing of our registrar, registry and strategic partners, please see:
http://www.i-dns.net/corporate/partners/partners.html

Status Report: Operator-based response

3. Do you register domain names in Latin script as well, or only IDN?

WALID Currently, we only register internationalized domain names
Verisign GRS Yes, VeriSign GRS registers domains in the Latin script.
NSI Registrar (Verisign) Registrations of domain names are in both Latin script and IDN.
Neteka Neteka provides the software to enable the management, registration and resolution of multilingual domain names. All systems offered include the ability to register Latin scripts as well. Depending on the policy of our client, a mixture of any variety of languages is also possible.
JPNIC We accept Latin (ASCII) scripts as well as Japanese scripts.
TWNIC Both of them.
i-DNS.net Our Technology also accepts Latin scripts. Registrants can register "Latin.ML" names through our Registrar Partners.

However, we do not offer full Latin script [Latin].lLatin] domain name registration services through any of our Registrar partners.

Status Report: Operator-based response

4. Are the IDNs you have registered "live"? That is, can they be resolved in an end-user application, or are you just offering pre-registration of IDNs?

WALID Yes, the domain names in the WALID registry have been usable with the WALID WorldConnect™ client software since we launched the service in May 2000. Currently customers can either use our name servers to resolve their domain names (either directly or through a URL forwarding service), or can answer DNS requests with their own nameservers via standard NS delegations. Our WorldConnect system enabler also provides direct resolution capability for the approximately 920,000 IDNs registered in the VeriSign GRS Multilingual Testbed.
Verisign GRS The IDN testbed effort is in Phase 3.2, in which the IDN is still delegated as third level domain in the com, net and org gTLDs. The IDN can be resolved in an end user application. To achieve resolution, end users are required to use an internationalized domain name client listed on http://verisign-grs.com/idn/client/ or type <RACE>.mltbd.com/net/org directly into the browser.
NSI Registrar (Verisign) Clearly stated at the bottom of the http://global.networksolutions.com/en_US/purchasing/welcome.jhtml page, is the statement "Multilingual Domain Names are being offered as part of a trial period or "testbed." Resolution of Multilingual Domain Names has not yet occurred and, although anticipated at a later stage of the testbed, cannot be guaranteed. Future changes in Multilingual Domain Name technology standards may invalidate some of the names registered during the testbed."
Neteka For multilingual domain names registered under the Neteka registry system, all domain names are live and are resolvable without requiring any client-side reconfiguration. Neteka's involvement with the VeriSign multilingual domain name testbed means that names registered under this system is not usable yet.
JPNIC Yes, registered domain names can be resolved in end-user applications complying with the specs.
TWNIC Yes, the IDNs we've registered are "live". End users can resolve IDNs via web application and email application.
CNNIC Yes. CDN system provided by CNNIC can be resolved effectively.
i-DNS.net Yes. Names registered through our partners utilizing our Multilingual Technology and Multilingual ccTLD services are "live" and have been so since 1999.

The names are globally resolvable through:

1) Client-side solution - iClient
IETF has recommended that NAMEPREP be done on the client's end till a standard is determined. Having struck a strategic technology relationship with VeriSign, i-DNS.net's iClient is downloadable off both our corporate websites to enable the resolution of multilingual domain names. iClient resolves multilingual email addresses and all types of multilingual domain names, including ML.com (by VeriSign) and ML.ML (by i-DNS.net).

2) Server-side solution - iBIND
For ISPs wishing to immediately and transparently enable their user base with resolution ability, they can patch their servers with i-DNS.net's iBIND.

Status Report: Operator-based response

5. If you are not yet live, when do you anticipate going live?

WALID We have been live since May 2000 and are now offering registration services in Arabic, Chinese, and Hindi. Our client technology will resolve names in any script supported by Unicode 3.0, including all of the scripts supported by the VGRS testbed, and is also localized in a handful of languages.
Verisign GRS The target for IDNs to be "live" or appear in the com, net and org zone files is May-June 2001.
NSI Registrar (Verisign) The NSI Registrar is currently participating in the IDN Testbed being conducted by VeriSign Global Registry Services (VGRS). It is our intent to offer IDN registrants full functionality as it is made available by VGRS. Resolution of IDN names is currently in phase 3.2 as defined by VGRS documents at http://www.verisign-grs.com/idn/resolution.pdf.
Neteka Neteka's domain name server and registry management system is fully multilingual capable so any registry may implement it and have multilingual domain names live.
JPNIC <obsolete question>
TWNIC It's live now.

6. What technology do you employ, or do you intend to employ, for your IDN system?

WALID

Our core technology is embodied in two complementary products: WALID WorldConnect and WALID WorldTools™. WorldConnect is a client application which resides on the end-users' operating system and transparently handles the normalization and ACE transformation of multilingual domain names for resolution by the system's resolver. WorldConnect is currently being evaluated as a resolution technology as part of the VeriSign Multilingual Testbed.

WorldApp enables application developers to easily access and integrate IDN to ACE transformations into their applications. Because WorldApp is distributed as part of WorldConnect, an automatic and secure upgrade mechanism is intrinsic.

WorldTools is a toolkit of components for deployment at the registrar and registry's system to perform the same normalization and transformation at the time of registration. This toolkit provides a Java-based multilingual input method editor to support users who may not be able to render or generate particular scripts on their systems, and tools to support administrators of name servers, web servers, and other infrastructure systems.

All of these products have at their core an embedded runtime library called libIDN, which performs the actual normalization and transformation.

Verisign GRS The resolution testbed currently supports Row-based ASCII Compatible Encoding (RACE), and Name Prep, IETF convention for re-processing of an internationalized string as described in IEFT proposal Preparation of Internationalized Host Names.
NSI Registrar (Verisign) The NSI Registrar has internally developed it's own software to support the registration of IDNs and convert them into the encoded domain-name format currently defined by the IETF's Internet Draft of NamePrep 3.
Neteka Neteka's own NeDNS system together with the NeR2R (Registry-to-Registrar) system is used to multilingual enable our clients. It is based on a hybrid solution described in Section A:1.
Tonga We will choose a standard and implement it ourselves when a clear de facto standard becomes available. An implementation before then seems premature, and potentially destabilizing to the Internet.
JPNIC We employ the technology being introduced by JPNIC in IETF and everywhere.
TWNIC

(1)Interim case:

a. Using NAMEPREP to convert IDN into English domain name(ACE encoding) for IDN resolving.

b. Setting up DNS(web) proxy to support IDN resolving. The DNS(web) proxy converts IDN into English domain name.

c. Supporting various zone file encoding in server side.

(2)Testbed case:

a. Modifying BIND software to support clean 8 bits (native encoding) and UTF-8 encoding.

b. Modifying related software: Apache, Squid, etc., to support clean 8 bits (native encoding) UTF-8 encoding.

CNNIC We employ "multi 8-bit encoding" technology in our IDN system.
i-DNS.net

i-DNS.net pioneered the development of the Internationalized Domain Name System (iDNS) technology, currently being adopted by more than 30 Registrar, Registry and Strategic Partners.

Status Report: Operator-based response

7. As you know, IETF has not yet adopted standards relating to IDN. If adopted, do you intend to comply with these standards when they are adopted? Please explain your policy regarding technical standards.

WALID We recognize the critical importance of the work of the IETF Working Group. As discussed above, WALID has been a participant in the development of technical standards relating to IDNs within the IETF, and the technical direction that the IETF IDN Working Group is currently pursuing is an ACE-based resolution approach in the application layer. We are pleased that the best minds in the IETF agree with WALID's overall approach to this problem, and believe the WALID resolution technology in the form of WALID WorldConnect and WorldApp can provide a robust deployment and transition platform to this new standard, available for use immediately.
Verisign GRS The VeriSign GRS policy is to ensure compliance with evolving standards under development by the IETF IDN working group.
NSI Registrar (Verisign) As previously stated in answer # 6, the NSI Registrar supports the current draft standards being proposed by IETF. It is our intention to comply with any final standards (and upgrade our current IDN systems, if necessary) when final standards are adopted.
Neteka Neteka is committed to a standards based solution and will definitely adopt standards from the IETF. However, Neteka is also sensitive to the user demand for a transparent and usable system without requiring client-side upgrade. Neteka therefore intends to choose the hybrid approach for the interim to make sure that names registered are immediately usable and will continue to be usable as the standard evolves.
Tonga If a technical standard makes sense to us, and there is no good business or political reason not to adopt it, the .TO ccTLD is likely to use the standard.
JPNIC We intend to comply with the IETF standards.
TWNIC Of course we do. Before the standards are adopted, we would like to develop some IDN related local solutions just for local testing.
CNNIC We will comply with IETF's standards. We expect IETF to consult extensively with relevant international organizations before making the standard.
i-DNS.net Our technology is standards compliant, and reflects our commitment to the IDN standards process. We firmly believe that the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is the rightful authority and forum for any establishment of a technical standard for the requirement of IDN. i-DNS.net will adopt any standard developed by open consensus of the IDN Working Group (WG) at IETF.

i-DNS.net will also continue to support and participate in the IETF IDN WG by sharing its experience and expertise with all WG participants without bias.

Please go to: http://www.i-dns.net/corporate/pressroom/papers.html# to view i-DNS.net's technology position papers.

In keeping pace of the IETF standardization process, i-DNS.net has taken an approach that addresses the widest possible technical possibilities in resolving Internationalized Domain Names, one of which might be the promulgated Standard by IETF. This ranges from Client-based to Server-based, and from DNS to Directory-based solutions.

Status Report: Operator-based response

8. How many registrations have you accepted in each script you register?

WALID We have processed many registrations in several scripts.
Verisign GRS We are unable to provide this information, as VeriSign GRS does not store script information. VeriSign GRS systems are script agnostic, as the information is simply stored as a sequence of Unicode code points rather than scripts.
NSI Registrar (Verisign) This information is proprietary.
Neteka Neteka provides the software for enabling the management, registration and resolution of multilingual domain names. Neteka itself is not a registry or registrar of domain names.
JPNIC We have accepted nearly 50,000 Japanese domain name applications as well as 350,000 ASCII domain names by mid May. Most of the applied domain names have already been registered.

9. In what scripts do you accept registrations currently? What other scripts do you anticipate registering in the future?

WALID Currently, WALID offers registration services in Arabic, Hindi, and Simplified Chinese. We are expanding our systems to support most of the scripts included in Unicode 3.1 by 3Q2001.
Verisign GRS

VGRS accepts testbed registrations in the form of valid characters as defined by the Unicode code point list at http://www.verisign-grs.com/idn/unicode.html.

Thus the testbed will allow a registrant to register an IDN in all the languages that can be written in the following scripts: Latin; Greek; Cyrillic; Armenian; Hebrew; Arabic; Syriac; Thaana; Devanagari; Bengali; Gurmukhi; Oriya; Tamil; Telegu; Kannada; Malayalam; Sinhala; Thai; Lao; Tibetan; Myanmar; Georgian; Hangul; Ethiopic; Cherokee; Canadian-Aboriginal Syllabics; Ogham; Runic; Khmer; Mongolian; Han (Japanese, Chinese, Korean ideographs); Hiragana; Katakana; Bopomofo and Yi.

NSI Registrar (Verisign) We support IDN registrations in all available characters as defined by the IETF's Internet Draft of NamePrep 3. For the educational benefit of our customers, we have classified these Unicode code points into 39 scripts or writing systems, with an explanation at http://global.networksolutions.com/en_US/purchasing/languageList.jhtml.
Neteka All scripts supported by the Unicode/ISO10646, plus all local encoding scripts. Any script or encoding scheme introduced will be considered and could be incorporated into Neteka's technology.
Tonga Japanese and Chinese are likely to be the first we offer.
JPNIC We accept ASCII domain names and Japanese character domain names.
TWNIC We accept ASCII, Big5, GB, UTF8-Big5, UTF8-GB scripts. In the future: Not yet defined.
i-DNS.net

i-DNS technology supports all languages that are supported within Unicode. Some of our Strategic and Registry Partners (e.g. eNIC and VeriSign GRS) are already utilizing our technology to offer registration services in more than 30 languages.

Status Report: Operator-based response

10. Have you had more complications with certain scripts than with others? What sort of complications?

WALID No.
Verisign GRS No.
NSI Registrar (Verisign) No, we have not experienced complications.
Neteka Our experience tells us that there complications varies between different scripts, and it is important to involve the local community to establish an acceptable rule set for deploying native language domain names. However, Neteka's position is that some localized issues such as character mapping is best left to the policies of the registry to determine because a generalized technical solution forced into the DNS would mean that the problems arising from the existing "reduction to common factor" (reducing to A-z 0-9) approach of the original DNS will not be solved.
JPNIC We need to explain when and how Japanese character domain names are expected to be fully used. Such explanation is not necessary for ASCII domain names. In addition, we need to be more serious about the intellectual property rights in Japanese domain names. Also, usable character set should be decided because there are some sets of Japanese characters which are very old or obsolete.
TWNIC The complications come from the normalization between Traditional Chinese characters (Big5 code) and Simplify Chinese characters(GB code), since they are not perfectly matched in each word by word. There are many "one to many" and "many to one" problems. For ex., some single one Simplify Chinese character can equivalent to many Traditional Chinese characters, vice versa. But Traditional Chinese characters can only fix in the formal appointed meaning.
CNNIC a. The sequence of Chinese Domain Names is different with that of the current DNS and labels.
b. The problem of simplified - traditional Chinese mapping; the complication is the code-point corresponding between Simplified Chinese characters and Original Chinese characters.
i-DNS.net Yes, some scripts are more complex tan others, but this is not a barrier to moving ahead with IDN's.

For instance, some scripts lack accepted encoding standards e.g. Indian languages (Tamil, Telugu, Hindi). Scripts that lack input methods or scripts that are not fully supported by the native operating system can pose challenges.

However these are not IDN problems per se; Native language input method, necessary for users to access IDN, is dependent on Operating Systems and the availability of supporting applications. Unless you can get the language entered/displayed on a computer, there is no way that you can treat it under any IDN.

Status Report: Operator-based response

11. Of the registrants registering IDNs with you, what percentage already have domain names registered in Latin script?

WALID We estimate that at least 80% of registrants are registering IDN variants or equivalents of existing Latin domain names.
Verisign GRS VeriSign GRS does not store registrant data.
NSI Registrar (Verisign) The NSI Registrar does not track this information at the time of registration.
Neteka Neteka provides the software for enabling the management, registration and resolution of multilingual domain names. Neteka itself is not a registry or registrar of domain names.
JPNIC We have no such data.
i-DNS.net We do not capture any detailed statistics on this. However, our research tells us that a large number of customers already have ASCII names, and use the ML name to point to their current site, thus complementing their web offering and opening themselves up to a wider class of native speaking customers.

12. Before you began accepting IDN registrations, did you conduct market studies to determine the demand for IDN services? If so, what did the studies reveal?

WALID WALID's market research and analysis has indicated that the potential market for internationalized domain name services is quite large, and VeriSign's experience with their multilingual testbed has shown that there is real and immediate demand for this technology.
Verisign GRS There were no independent studies commissioned by VeriSign GRS to assess demand for IDN services. However, Internet use is increasing dramatically throughout the world. Users who speak a language other than English comprise one of the fastest growing groups. Current estimates are that non-English speakers will make up two-thirds of all Internet users by 2003.
NSI Registrar (Verisign) The NSI Registrar did conduct studies of its customers and partners and found that there was interest in IDN registrations.
Neteka Yes. Domain registration growth will continue mainly in the ccTLD and new gTLD areas. More importantly, ccTLDs where its particular country uses language other than English as their mother tongue are generally more receptive of the technology. While the user demand is tremendous, administrative personnel at these TLDs are hesitant to adopt non-standardized solutions. Therefore, it gives way to opportunistic alternative namespace operators to penetrate the market and confuse the users by introducing full multilingual names.
JPNIC We conducted market studies in adhoc manner such as communication with some users and ISPs.
TWNIC Before providing the IDN registration service, we have already experimented a half year on Chinese domain name's registration. During that time, we gave applicant's confidence to our efforts.In registrars opinions, they take into account the integration of technology service and market demand.
CNNIC CDN users are mostly living in the Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, while over 97.5% Chinese people are living in these four areas. It is no doubt that in Chinese language area has the great demand for CDN services.
i-DNS.net Yes. Research on demand for IDN by our team of researchers was done back in 1998. Studies confirmed that there was high demand for a technology that could overcome linguistic barriers for basic Internet services such as e-mail and domain name addresses.

Since the incorporation of i-DNS.net, market research is constantly conducted for strategic planning and deployment purposes. The studies have few common revelations:

- Chinese, Korean and Japanese markets are Asia's largest, with extremely high demand for IDN services.
- Demand for IDN will grow at an exponential rate, alongside the exponential growth of Non-English Internet users and localized web content.
- Population of Non-English Internet users will significantly outweigh that of English Internet users.

Status Report: Operator-based response

13. To what extent are you offering IDN services as a defensive measure, i.e., because others are offering these services? To what extent are registrants registering IDNs as a defensive measure, i.e., to prevent cybersquatting?

WALID

We founded WALID based on two fundamental beliefs. First, that internationalized domain names are a necessity for the Internet to become a truly universal system that serves a diverse and global audience. Second, that our technical approach towards internationalized domain names, particularly as embodied in WALID WorldConnect, is unique in that it is deployable immediately and will not have a profoundly negative impact on the current operational and functional stability of the Internet.

Our experience with our customers has been that, for the most part, they are registering internationalized domain names because they find them interesting and valuable, and less so because they are trying to protect a brand or trademark. Our reach with registration services has been on a much smaller scale than VeriSign's testbed activities, and we would expect that more defensive registrations could occur as our volume increases.

Verisign GRS The Internationalized Domain Name testbed was conceived and developed by VeriSign GRS not only to meet burgeoning marketing demand, but also as a defensive measure against alternative IDN approaches which might be contrary to the principle of a single DNS root and might not be in compliance with the evolving standards work by the IDN working group of the IEFT.
NSI Registrar (Verisign) The NSI Registrar offers IDN services to address our customers needs and to provide our customers a full range of services.
Neteka Neteka is an innovator in the multilingual domain name technologies. Neteka believes that it is more of a branding measure than a defensive measure. It does however appear to be a defensive mechanism if the domain names registered are nonfunctional. However the key to understanding the need is that companies often have their names and/or products as well as their corresponding literature in multiple languages, and that it only makes sense for the domain name that corresponds to these information are in the language of the information.
JPNIC We are offering IDN services for real use not for defense. As to registrants, we've heard of both situations, i.e., for real use and for defense although we have no idea about the proportion.
TWNIC

We started doing it not just only from a defensive measure point of view. We also need to concern what our Internet community needs.

Prevent cybersquatting and requirement of use IDNs both are the registrants consideration.

CNNIC

To some extent, CNNIC offers CDN services is because others are offering the similar services.

Users register CDN is because to prevent cybersquatting.

i-DNS.net i-DNS.net is the pioneer of IDN services. Our 3-year history and traction in country secures us as the leading provider of these services. None of our IDN services are defensive measures but services set up to meet the demands revealed through extensive research done over the past 3 years.

i-DNS.net seeks to continually provide value-added services aimed at supporting the entire spectrum of the industry. Specific examples of such services that we have launched include professional registrar services and managed registry outsourcing services.

With regards the 2nd part of the question, i-DNS.net is seeing registrations of IDN by many SMEs and established Companies like Yahoo!, Acer, Asustek, Honda, etc. Establishing and protecting their online branding/identity is often a common proposition for them to register. We do not, however, know the extent of which of these are defensive measures against speculators.

Status Report: Operator-based response

14. What steps are you taking to prevent cybersquatting? Do you have a "sunrise" mechanism in place? If so, please describe ho it works. Do you subscribe to the ICANN UDRP? If not, are you willing to consider agreeing to it, or some variant thereof?

WALID

WALID requires registrants to agree to terms and conditions in an agreement modelled very closely on the ICANN UDRP, and we are committed to supporting and following ICANN's lead with respect to the establishment of a uniform dispute resolution policy, as it may be amended from time to time.

We currently do not have any "sunrise" mechanism in place or a similar policy at this time. We would be interested to participate in any discussions concerning these matters for IDNS.

Verisign GRS As described in Survey B, measures to minimize cybersquatting include fostering the use of the UDRP and urging registrars during the testbed to consider deleting IDN second level domain name registrations upon receipt of a formal, written objection to the registration by any legitimate authority, including without limitation a trademark owner.
NSI Registrar (Verisign) Please refer to the section titled "SPECIAL NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER FOR MULTILINGUAL DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATIONS" of the Network Solutions Service Agreement, found at http://global.networksolutions.com/legal/service-agreement.jhtml. The relevant portion follows: "You specifically acknowledge and agree that an MDN shall be considered a domain name for purposes of the Domain Name Dispute Policy and the provisions relating thereto in this Agreement. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in the Domain Name Dispute Policy, you agree that during the Test Bed we may terminate your registration of an MDN in our sole discretion without notice to you if, within 45 days of your registration, we receive a formal, written objection to the registration by any legitimate authority, including without limitation a trademark owner or governmental entity. Our right of termination under this provision shall continue until such time as: (1) Verisign Global Registry Services publicly announces that its Test Bed is complete; and (2) we determine in our sole discretion that all of the encoding schemes, protocols and other MDN-enabling technologies that are used to provide your MDN registration services have been approved by appropriate standard-setting bodies."
Neteka Neteka provides the software for enabling the management, registration and resolution of multilingual domain names. Neteka itself is not a registry or registrar of domain names. Neteka encourages our clients to adopt the UDRP.
Tonga No steps are taken, the .TO ccTLD registry operates STRICTLY on a first-come first-served basis. No, we do not subscribe to the ICANN UDRP, and are not likely to do so, as the confidentiality of a domain name registrant is a long standing and important aspect of our policy.
JPNIC We placed a sunrise period for a month at the beginning of the registration period. It seems to have worked very well to prevent cybersquatting. JP domain registration rule has its DRP, which is a localized version of UDRP.
TWNIC In "sunrise" period, we have reserved words for preventing someone from abusive registration of domain name. Besides, we follow the ICANN UDRP and take into consideration the judicial system and national conditions of our country.
CNNIC

a. WHOIS measures: we require applicants to provide authentic contact information (including name of organization, location, postal code, telephone number, fax number, email address, etc.) and the confirmation for accepting the restriction of the Domain Name Resolution process;

b. Sunrise mechanism?To prevent cybersquatting;

c. Examination measures: we require our registrars to strictly observe the "Administration Measures on Chinese Domain Name Registration (trial version)"

d. CDRP mechanism: In regarding to prevent disputes in register and use CDN, CNNIC published "Chinese Domain Name Dispute Resolution (Trial Version)"in November last year. CNNIC also authorized CIETAC(China International Economy and Trade Arbitration Committee) as CDN dispute resolution institution, which can provide both sides of the dispute a convenient and equitable resolution method.

We agree to the principles of UDRP, while gTLDs and ccTLDs should have their distinctive characteristics in resolving the domain name disputes.

i-DNS.net No, we do not have a 'sunrise' pre-registration period .

i-DNS.net endorses the World Intellectual Property Organisation's ("WIPO") Final Report of the WIPO Internet Domain Name Process (dated 30 April 1999) - a copy of which can be found at
http://ecommerce.wipo.int/domains/process/eng/final_report.html.

i-DNS.net's dispute policy at http://www.i-DNS.net/dispute.html is drafted & modeled along WIPO's recommendations and ICANN's Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP).

In our Domain Name Registration Agreement, which all of our Registrars are required to adopt, we specifically warn potential registrants not to register trademarks that they do not have rights to.
However, there are no restrictions against generic domain names, so long as the generic name is available at the time of registration. We do not have any sunrise-mechanism in place.

Status Report: Operator-based response

 

15. Do you offer a WHOIS database? If so, for what purposes? If not, do you intend to do so in the near future?

WALID We offer a web-based WHOIS service as part of our current registration system. We will offer a TCP port 43-style service in 3Q2001. We provide this information solely for operational purposes.
Verisign GRS

WHOIS services must be internationalized if the domain names they hold are internationalized. One possibility is internationalizing the WHOIS protocol itself, along with clients and servers. Another is adopting the IDNA approach: IDNs would be stored in an ACE format and WHOIS clients would convert internationalized user input into ACE format before querying a WHOIS server.

VeriSign GRS is presently developing an IDN Whois service. In the interim, an IDN conversion tool is provided.

NSI Registrar (Verisign) The NSI Registrar offers a WHOIS service, and that service can be used with IDN services if the customer utilizes the ACE-encoded name for a look-up.
Neteka Yes. Neteka has technology for multilingual WHOIS and provides the technology to our clients.
Tonga Yes. So automated queries can easily determine if a given name is already registered.
JPNIC

We offer WHOIS database for

1) solving technical problems,
2) transparency of the fairness of registration,
3) reference to DRP-related information, and
4) analysis in academic statistics study.

TWNIC Yes, it's a centralized database system but not a distributed database system. It is not adopt Internet WHOIS standard currently, but we will consider to use the standard in the future.
CNNIC

We offer CDN inquiring database; people can easily consult the domain name owner and relevant registration information.

i-DNS.net

Yes (only for [IDN.IDN] names of which we are the technology provider and Registry). Our Whois database has a publicly accessible function that provides information on domain names within our Registry.

Status Report: Operator-based response

16. How are you marketing your IDN services? To what extent are customers informed about the tentative nature of current IDN standards and testbeds?

WALID We market our services primarily through establishing relationships with ccTLD and gTLD registries, and through the establishment of joint ventures and other regional partnerships. Registrants are informed about the nature of current IDN standards at the time of registration.
Verisign GRS

Participation in the IDN testbed is open to ICANN accredited, IDN certified registrars only. The testbed nature of the IDN registrations as well as information on standards progress is available on the IDN Central Website (http://www.verisign-grs.com/idn/index.html).

As communicated in press releases and on the VeriSign GRS web site, it is important for registrars and registrants to understand that the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has not finalized internationalized domain name standards. In the future, revisions to the Internet draft documents may cause:

  • The registrant's domain name registration to become invalid and be deleted.
  • Modification to the VeriSign GRS Registry's internal representation of the domain name to comply with revisions to the Internet draft documents.

Such occurrences will be resolved on a case-by-case basis, as they occur.

NSI Registrar (Verisign) The NSI Registrar markets IDN services via its regular communications with partners and to our customers via in-country advertising. As noted in answer # 4 above, it is made very clear to our customers that registration is part of a testbed. Please also review the FAQ document at http://global.networksolutions.com/en_US/help/multi-lingual-learnmore.jhtml for further elaboration of our registration services for IDN domains.
Neteka Most of Neteka's marketing efforts are through direct marketing. Our customers are made fully aware of the tentative nature of the current standards and testbeds for multilingual domain names. Neteka offers a comprehensive and all inclusive approach that takes into consideration all streams currently being discussed as well as an immediate deployment strategy. Together it ensures our client has a functional system right away that is backward compatible and prepared for any future evolution.
JPNIC We offer information about the tentative nature of current IDN standards to the users. And also we offer tools for testbeds with the information about the status of the standardization.
TWNIC Currently, We do some IDN experimental projects, pre-registration and advertisement on our web page, news letter, news paper. We will announce the updated information on website and also to media.
CNNIC

Since CNNIC launched its CDN system, we applied ourselves to inform CDN users the tentative nature of current IDN standards and testbeds.

i-DNS.net

i-DNS.net shares its marketing efforts with its Registrar partners, who have a strong in-depth understanding of their local markets. Marketing initiatives include online advertising, print ads on Business publications, etc.

i-DNS.net's enquiry support is extended to global Internet users, and we seek to address all queries on general topics related to IDN. e.g. questions on the coordinating bodies of IDN, questions on IDN standard, etc.

i-DNS.net is also actively educating the public on the benefits, availability and usage of IDN through the media. Our PR initiatives have generated hundreds of IDN-related news articles in various global and local publications.

Public Education on IDN is one of i-DNS.net's priorities.

Status Report: Operator-based response

 

17. Is there anything else we should know?

WALID WALID is extremely pleased to be able to participate in and contribute to this survey. We fully support ICANN's activities in this area, and are eager to participate in any future discussions regarding technology, policy, or operation of internationalized domain name registration and resolution systems.
Verisign GRS All relevant information is posted and updated on the IDN central portion of the VeriSign GRS Web site.
NSI Registrar (Verisign) All relevant information is on our web site, which is updated periodically.
Neteka There is a strong concern from parts of the technical community for the anxiety that legacy servers would break or choke on multilingual requests being sent over the wire. The different implementations indicate that this concern is highly overrated. The original DNS was designed to be 8-bit tolerable, and therefore should not crash even if multilingual character information is forced through the network. This is an extremely important acknowledgement for the overall deployment and success of multilingual domain names.
TWNIC

(1) To develop IDN must consider about the local user's culture and customs , not just only solve technical problem. Thus, IDN's related management and policy are also very important.

(2) Due to the non-English country's users eagerly need of IDN, We suggest IETF IDN WG speeding the step of forming IDN related standards.

(3) Chinese as one of the non-English script, has the great majority population used in Mainland, Taiwan, Hong kong, Macao. So we strongly suggest the Chinese domain name (CDN), including [CDN].cctld and [CDN].[CDN], should let CDNC(Chinese Domain Name Consortium) to deal with local testbed. The experience and result of the local testbed could be as a reference to open up another global IDN TLDs

i-DNS.net

No further comment.

Status Report: Solution not just technical. User customs should be respected.

18. During the public forum discussion of IDNs at the Stockholm meeting, several members of the public suggested that there are providers of IDN services who may seek to develop an alternate root or who are misrepresenting the nature of their services. Who are these providers? What proof is there of their activities?

Anonymous A The Tokyo-based company "ejapanDNS Corporation" has started [IDN].[IDN] style domain name registration service.

http://www.ejapandns.co.jp/

The top level domains thay are administering are ".kaish (in Kanji)", ".net (in Katakana)", and ".game (in Katakana)".

You can find some news articles in the following URL's though they are all in Japanese.=

http://www.ascii24.com/24/news/net/article/2001/04/20/625433-000.html?24

http://www.mainichi.co.jp/digital/coverstory/archive/200104/19/1.html

http://ascii24.com/news/i/serv/article/2001/07/18/628030-000.html

The above mentioned three TLD's are not authorized by ICANN. And they seem to have adopted the Zero Level Domain technique which may lead to the break of the Internet domain name space. I think you may call it one of the alternate roots.

Fortunately, I don't think it's popular here in Japan as of now. But it should not be allowed in the context of public trust on which ICANN is based.

Thank you.

i-DNS.net

i-DNS.net does not wish to comment on the intent of other IDN service providers, or whether they misrepresent their services to their publics.

However, misrepresentation is not a practice that we subscribe to. We firmly believe that where there are issues that can affect a service that is offered for sale, the respective publics should be fully informed at the point of purchase.

Currently, there are numerous providers of IDN services that claim IETF compliance, offering ML TLD strings. As we understand things, these companies provide domain names that resolve over the Internet through the current ICANN root.

i-DNS.net is one provider of these services, and we provide our customers with a way of resolving their names on the existing Internet, without "breaking" the Internet. We believe that our Customers, and our registrars, are fully aware of the features of our product, and what is required to use them in practice, hence we do not believe that we misrepresent in any way our services.

We believe that all IDN service providers should publicly articulate their approach to deploying IDN services (through white and position papers) and adhere to what has been posited. Any changes to their approach should be further documented publicly so as to empower Internet users with the necessary information to make the right decisions, when choosing a particular service provider.

Perhaps ICANN feels there is an "oversight" role for it to play in reviewing such documentation. However, this places ICANN in danger of becoming a regulator for all services on the Internet; why should they restrict themselves to IDN's?

Cleary the issue of "alternate roots" goes well beyond deployment of IDN's. "Resolution is a very broad topic, and covers a considerably wider area that "the root". For instance, Key words, browser plugs and a raft of other technologies and devices all contribute to resolution in different ways.

TWNIC (2)

To keep stable operation of Internet is very important. The techniques of tunneling and local mirroring of DNS resolution servers are already existed in Internet. Current Internet DNS root server is the public trusted node, so every DNS server will refer to the root server for unknown domain resolving. If another one server is referred previously, it may or may not be a root server. But what is the exactly definition of alternate root? Something like Microsoft's "auto.search.msn.com", does it an alternate root?

We think a trusted single root manager is still need, even if the [IDN].[IDN] comes out. But before the IDN standard and managing rule are established, the testbed of [IDN].[IDN] for experimental purpose is also needed. ICANN should encourage the testbed if it is keep closed, stable and does not interfere the operation of current single authoritative root DNS infrastructure.

 

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