an email from Verisign re: Nameprep

[Lmg67]

Hi, I emailed Verisign regarding RD's info. in the last thread, basically cutting and pasting what he said:

"It is not whether you can renew or not that matters. What is important is whether the new version of Nameprep will support it. If it doesn't, it simply won't resolve. Grandfathering is not an issue here."

I asked them what they know about the new Nameprep version vis à vis (I have this IDN in .net btw!!) symbols/characters. I also asked them who to contact if Verisign doesn't know. I have to give them kudos b/c they always respond in a very timely manner. Anyway here is the response:

Dear Laurie,

As you may know all of the standards work surrounding IDNA is driven by
the IETF community and is not being driven by one particular company as
it effects all TLDs. The way that the IETF works is that working groups
are formed around the process of developing specific RFC's, IDNA and
its companion Nameprep for example is based on the RFC standard 3491
(http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3491.txt). The RFC process can be a very
long process and it is not without a tremendous amount of discussion and
deliberation before an existing RFC gets updated because there are some
many implications to changing an existing standard.

Consider that the process to implement a change to IDNA of which
Nameprep is a component would require all browser vendors to update their
software to be conformant to this new standard which is not a small
undertaking. While on the face of it, the quote you provided in your email is
correct there are many factors and dynamics which go into the entire
process to change an RFC.

VeriSign is not directly involved in any activities in this area other
than to monitor the discussions as it is still very early in the
process and being driven by other individuals who have much more expertise in
this area which include the original authors of the RFC's which make up
the suite of IDNA. If you are interested in following this activity and
discussions the following mailing list is specifically dealing with
"next generation" IDN issues:

http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/idna-update

Best Regards,

Bryant, Bonnie
Customer Service
VeriSign, Inc
www.verisign.com
1 703.925.6999
1 703.421.5828 Fax

-- I'll be interested to hear your reactions. - Laurie

[touchring]

This sums it up. It took microsoft 6 years to come out with a browser that can decode this unicode to punycode. Period.

[domainguru]

Finally, a relatively sensible answer from VeriSign

[Lmg67]

I guess b/c I don't come from any kind of computer background, I still don't understand if this means YES to symbols or NO. Or is she saying it's not going to happen in the near future (it would be a very complicated change to make, if they started disallowing symbols?) but as far as years down the line, who knows?

If you had around 150-200 symbol domains -- many of which are getting good traffic -- many of which are not on any country's keyboard -- would you renew them?

Thanks, Laurie

[domainguru]

Originally Posted by Lmg67

I guess b/c I don't come from any kind of computer background, I still don't understand if this means YES to symbols or NO. Or is she saying it's not going to happen in the near future (it would be a very complicated change to make, if they started disallowing symbols?) but as far as years down the line, who knows?

If you had around 150-200 symbol domains -- many of which are getting good traffic -- many of which are not on any country's keyboard -- would you renew them?

Thanks, Laurie

lol, it means "renew them for as long as they keep resolving and making money, then dump instantly!"

[touchring]

Originally Posted by Lmg67

I guess b/c I don't come from any kind of computer background, I still don't understand if this means YES to symbols or NO. Or is she saying it's not going to happen in the near future (it would be a very complicated change to make, if they started disallowing symbols?) but as far as years down the line, who knows?

If you had around 150-200 symbol domains -- many of which are getting good traffic -- many of which are not on any country's keyboard -- would you renew them?

Thanks, Laurie

Do you get lots of clicks also?

[IDNCowboy]

From what I heard they are changing it soon so maybe symbols won't be in the next version.

[Lmg67]

I went ahead and wrote IETF b/c I followed the link the Verisign lady above gave me and read some of the thread and it looked to me like they were planning to exclude symbols. So I made a big case for keeping them, a genuine case, and I asked if they'd write me back and let me know what's going on with symbols.

If they do, I'll share their response.

My symbols don't get many clicks but I think it's Afternic's fault. They have a home page without any sponsored links, instead they are related category links. So first you have to click on one of those, and then only the NEXT page has sponsored links. It really annoys me. But my symbol domains get a lot more traffic at Afternic than Namedrive, so do some of my IDNs.

I still have to develop...haven't done one thing with them. Top ones on Afternic...

i❤india.com 216
i♡israel.com 211
freevisas.us 167
✞.net 162
business¢.com 161
bellhop.us 153
BanksInAmerica.info 147
stupor.us 136
✈flycheap✈.com 121
❣.com 119
免费片.net 116
♫music♫.com 115
itzsexvideos.com 113
✡torah✡.com 112
☑vote☒.com 112
i♡israel.net 111
i♥sushi.com 110
äc.net 109
☆☆☆☆☆nyhotel.com 109 4 0.43 1.74
i♥jerusalem.com 108 1 0.02 0.02
❤love❤.com 108
תל-אביב.net 107 (Tel Aviv)
1ã.com 106
♥心臓♥.com 106
✈VisitEurope✈.com 104
♯10.com 103
idnmarket.info 102

[touchring]

Originally Posted by IDNCowboy

From what I heard they are changing it soon so maybe symbols won't be in the next version.

If they are not in the next version, what's the implications? Means symbol domains will stop working?

[domainguru]

Originally Posted by touchring

If they are not in the next version, what's the implications? Means symbol domains will stop working?

How many times do we have to go over this guys? Symbols will stop working when the next standard is released, period.

And it doesn't matter how many times you symbol-owners write to the IETF / VeriSign / ICANN / FBI. The decision to remove symbols was made a long time ago and it ain't gonna change.

[touchring]

Originally Posted by domainguru

How many times do we have to go over this guys? Symbols will stop working when the next standard is released, period.

And it doesn't matter how many times you symbol-owners write to the IETF / VeriSign / ICANN / FBI. The decision to remove symbols was made a long time ago and it ain't gonna change.

Thks. So, this means the copyright symbol - ©.com - that sold for $4100 stop working? And will the pound symbol (£.com) stop working as well??

I think most symbol owners here got less than 30 symbols, some just a few for the novelty, almost everyone got their symbols at reg fee, and very few ppl would actually buy a symbol. Myself, i'll continue to renew the 9 symbols i got. I'm just trying to decide whether to register new symbols along the way.

[sarcle]

Originally Posted by touchring

Thks. So, this means the copyright symbol - ©.com - that sold for $4100 stop working? And will the pound symbol (£.com) stop working as well??

I think most symbol owners here got less than 30 symbols, some just a few for the novelty, almost everyone got their symbols at reg fee, and very few ppl would actually buy a symbol. Myself, i'll continue to renew the 9 symbols i got. I'm just trying to decide whether to register new symbols along the way.

It would be a tough-titty for them. Icann can do what they want. They could cancel all our names if they want, technically. We are still in "testing" mode and they reserve the right to make changes along the way. I really don't care. What difference does it make that we have these domains or not?

The pound, euro symbol are good but if they have those then why not the "dollar sign" or the "@" sign?

[blastfromthepast]

How are we still in "testing" mode?