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Greetings!
Hello,
I have been lurking here for awhile and I must tell you that I am already grateful for the company that this place provides. I first heard about international domain names in late October of 2000. Network Solutions had recently been acquired by Verisign and their announcement of the IDN “testbed” accompanied by sympathetic mainstream media hype, made it all sound like the implementation was a slam dunk-sure-thing that would occur shortly.
I quickly ran off and attempted to register what I considered to be my own holy grail of names. With Japanese/English dictionary in hand I entered its domain. Lo… and behold, it came up AVAILABLE. My excitement was tangible as I entered the rest of the information to complete its purchase. For the next few days I proceeded to register many more very excellent names. Then I found out that this was just pre-registration and that the testbed hadn’t even officially opened yet. My pre-registered names would be submitted at the same time as many other registrars and only some of them would be accepted. Needless to say I was very nervous the day the testbed was officially to open. That was on November 10 2000. I eagerly anticipated the arrival of the email that would inform me of which names were accepted. When it arrived I was very pleased to see that most of them had made it in!
Over the next few months I registered hundreds and hundreds more names. I enrolled my friends and family and they registered names too. I also studied ICANN’s dispute process and learned how it worked. I was as careful as possible to register only generic names but when you don’t actually speak the language it is impossible to be certain that you didn’t make any errors.
Then the waiting started…..
I waited….
And waited….
And waited some more….
Years passed and I did not renew all of the names I had registered. I only renewed what I thought were the very best ones.
Now I see some light at the end of this tunnel! (and I am very happy to be here)
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