£.com SNEAKS through!?!

[blastfromthepast]

Richard Haigh is a web designer from the exotic climes of Nottingham and the proud owner of “£.com”. He has decided he wants to use the site to cover the debate over Britain’s possible future adoption of the euro. “When it does kick off, I want to provide somewhere where people can voice their concerns,” he explains. Despite having “no personal belief either way”, he thinks that he’s on to something unique with his pound-symbol domain name.

But Haigh doesn’t actually own “£.com”. He owns “xn--9a.com” - the identifier used to represent the pound symbol. In fact, £.com doesn’t (strictly speaking) exist. Why? Ask John Klensin, who is, along with Fältström, the person most responsible for unusual additions to the internet’s domain name system. He is blunt about Haigh’s web address: “The £.com domain shouldn’t exist - it has been prohibited all along,” he explains. When told it clearly does exist, he is unremitting: “If [the web address] resolves, it is probably another bug. Somehow it has been sneaked through.”

http://www.domainnews.com/general/12...orld-wide-web/

Note: It has not been sneaked through but simply registered according to the standard, Klensin's biased agenda notwithstanding.

[touchring]

Will £ be replaced by the euro??

[blastfromthepast]

The English somehow managed to sneak through the £ into punycode, and the Europeans got their € and that gets on the nerves of Americans who can't get their $!

[blackops]

A small footnote to the above story...


http://technology.guardian.co.uk/wee...959721,00.html

Making sense of Babel

John Klensin commented (Tower of Babel, November 23) that my domain £.com has somehow been "sneaked through" and that its registration has been "prohibited all along". Both comments are incorrect, as the registration of £.com (xn--9a.com) was made within Icann's guidelines.

Furthermore, £.com has existed as a website for several years so I don't understand why he would imply that something unsavoury has either quickly or recently occurred. His final comment, that the domain name is a "communications nightmare", is untrue and nothing short of scaremongering. I am aware that the American "pound" (#) symbol may be used as a programming command, but this has nothing to do with the British pound symbol (£) and, in any case, symbols have no effect on domain names.
Richard Haigh
Nottingham

[Rubber Duck]

Originally Posted by blastfromthepast

The English somehow managed to sneak through the £ into punycode, and the Europeans got their € and that gets on the nerves of Americans who can't get their $!

The Americans embedded $ into all the applications and OS as a control character. That is why it cannot possilbly be used. They have only themselves to blame!

[blackops]

Originally Posted by Rubber Duck

The Americans embedded $ into all the applications and OS as a control character. That is why it cannot possilbly be used. They have only themselves to blame!

Good point!

[sarcle]

It's fine with me. As long as my (make£.com) is marketable in the UK.