user experience variant tld's pdf from icann

[sbe18]

http://www.icann.org/en/resources/idn/idn-variant-active-ux-23oct12-en.pdf


47 pager.....

so it looks like a 3 cuppa of tea to review....

oolong to start.....green tea middle..... darjeeling...finish...


s/

[domainguru]

http://www.icann.org/en/resources/idn/idn-variant-active-ux-23oct12-en.pdf


47 pager.....

so it looks like a 3 cuppa of tea to review....

oolong to start.....green tea middle..... darjeeling...finish...


s/

Well a quick scan-read reveals there is a lot of guff-talk in there about an amazing number of semi-irrelevant issues. For example, variants might not perform as users expect in search engines .... well, that is for search engines to deal with. Of course they won't work well yet, there is little or no demand for them to do so. When the demand is there, Google + other search engines will "do the necessary".

What's important is point 3.2 - Simplified and Traditional Chinese IDN TLDs - and how CNNIC and TWNIC have dealt with synchronizing iTLDs. And I quote:

------
In CNNIC, the delegated variant pairs (SC and TC) resolve to the same nameserver. They employ a practice called “parallel provisioning,” in which the SC and TC label is delegated separately, but the contents of the delegated zones are maintained together and from the same backend database. Updates to one also update the other. In TWNIC, the delegated variant pairs (SC and TC) also resolve to the same name server. DNAME is used. More information can be found in TWNIC’s policy document [27].
------

So TLD aliasing is technically possible and more to the point, being used today in China and Taiwan, either by "parallel provisioning" or DNAME.

And the part below that, "A few lessons can be drawn from synchronized IDN ccTLDs":

• The synchronized TLD query statistics show that Chinese IDN variants are being actively used. Given the fact that Chinese IDN ccTLDs tailor specifically to a linguistic community (e.g. Simplified Chinese community) and that IDN gTLDs tailor to a much more global audience, it is likely that variants for IDN gTLDs would receive more queries.
• RFC 4713 reduces the variant problem for IDN.IDNs from multiplicative to linear (see 3.1.2), thus making this a much simpler problem to manage for the registries.
• TLDs and SLDs variants are generated and managed in a cohesive, consistent, and predictable manner, from the perspective of the end user.

So its all good news. The "trial" has shown that variant TLDs are a technical success, and are already working today.

So all that remains is VeriSign having the good grace to let us out of our collective misery and announce how they will handle .com aliasing, both technically and from a policy stand-point.

But I don't see this happening until the "new gTLD" draw has taken place, even though thankfully IDNs aren't having to go through this latest ICANN attempt at not making a complete arse of itself.

[Rubber Duck]

Not sure it counts at an Attempt if you are the Three Times World Record Holder.

[domainguru]

Not sure it counts at an Attempt if you are the Three Times World Record Holder.

And I used to think I was cryptic :-p