Question: Can someone please elaborate a bit more on the problems that the mulilingual domain name testbed will pose? Thank you.

Nominee Replies

Sureswaran Ramadass - posted on 2000-09-30 04:46:28 I think if it is handled well, it should not pose any problems. Lulin Gao - posted on 2000-09-27 21:24:47 I realize a potential problem resulting from the way ccTLDs are registered and open gTLDs involving multilingual domain names will be registered. For instance, restrictions are imposed by CNNIC in connection with registration of the third level domain name, e.g., 例子.com.cn, in a ccTLD and no restrictions will be put in place in connection with the registration of the second level domain name, e.g., 例子.com, in a multilingual gTLD. From a marketing standpoint, these two domain names should have the similar functionality, i.e., they are registered to target Internet users who understand Chinese characters and most of these users are geographically located in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, etc. In this respect, unlike traditional gTLDs that is theoretically meaningful around the world, multilingual gTLDs are likely to be only meaningful to the Internet community that is concentrated in certain geographical regions. Query: whether the particular circumstances and concerns of those affected geographical regions would be taken into account when it comes to registration? This question might also be relevant to what criteria should be adopted for accreditation of registrars of multilingual gTLDs. I believe that same problems will be created for other affected geographical areas, such as Japan and Korea since the test bed will also involve multilingual gTLDs in Japanese and Korean languages. Also, I recently discussed this matter with a senior engineer specializing in the technologies of Chinese domain names, he advised that if there are any difference in terms of technologies, encoding methods or formats between say 中文.com (a TLD) and 中文.com.cn (a ccTLD in China), it may cause difficulties for the Chinese domain name users in China to use the Chinese DNS. The case would be same for ccTLDs in other non-English languages. As such, consultation must be made with the affected registries of ccTLDs to have those technical problems resolved to ensure users of existing ccTLDs in non-English languages to continue using them without encountering any difficulties. Given these potential problems, I strongly support the view that the test bed must be carried in a cautious, well-thought-out and slow manner. Masanobu Katoh - posted on 2000-09-25 09:56:38 It may not be most appropriate to discuss specific initiatives and activities regarding the multilingual domain name issues in this Q & A web forum. In an appropriate forum, I would like to discuss this matter further. Here is a short answer to your question. The issue is this: There are already some companies providing multilingual domain names services on a ccTLD level, and there are indications that some companies intend to provide such services on a gTLD level. The technologies to be used in those initiatives are not standardized and there is a serious possibility of making different domain name systems mutually incompatible and non-interoperable. There are some efforts of standardization on the technology side, but so far there is no single technological standard among several groups in Asia. This is partially because of the competitive reasons among different business interests. A multilingual domain name system poses more problems since, as we Asians know, even the Chinese characters used in Beijing, Taipei or Tokyo are different. Technically, we can assign different ASCII codes, but for a person, all (slightly different) characters are the same. This would cause additional and much more complicated cybersquatting or other legal problems. Currently there is no concrete mechanism to freeze the issuance of different domain name systems. However, we need to coordinate such systems quickly. Johannes Chiang - posted on 2000-09-21 00:55:11 Dear ICANN members: I have answered the last question from Ms. Zhang and mentioned some problems regarding the Multilingual Domain Name testbed. I am very glad to have this chance to discuss this important topic further, because I have been working in this area for years, as I mentioned in my nominee page on the ICANN site and my own web-site (www.myicann.net). Besides the problems already mentioned, such as translation mechanisms and the scalability after that, some problems are listed here : 1 What is the mechanism to decide registry/registrar 2 What sort of dispute resolution policy can be applied to multilingual domain name 3 What kind of killer application support multilingual domain name, for example, E-mail service I am very glad to discuss these with ICANN members and will keep working on it, no matter elected or not. Please contact me and tell me your opinions about Multilingual DNS via chi@mis.nccu.edu.tw.