NTAG rubbishes new gTLD collision risk report

[IdnHost]

The New gTLD Applicants Group has slated Interisle Consulting’s report into the risk of new gTLDs causing security problems on the internet, saying the problem is “overstated”.

We might not have to wait that long after all. Fingers crossed.

Full DomainIncite Article Link:
http://domainincite.com/14162-ntag-rubbishes-new-gtld-collision-risk-report

[squirrel]

Personally I do not mind the delay if it results in the variant TLD program being implemented before IDN new gTLDs launch

[Avtal]

Personally I do not mind the delay if it results in the variant TLD program being implemented before IDN new gTLDs launch

I think I used to know what you mean by "the variant TLD program", but I've forgotten. Could you remind me? Does this have something to do with single-character TLDs?

Avtal

[squirrel]

It's simply variants at the top level, example .游戏(simplified) and .遊戲(traditional)

One would expect that
whatever.游戏 and whatever.遊戲
resolve to the same place, or at least would be controlled by the same entity. (such is the case in some ccTLDs)

The mechanism to achieve that is being worked on by ICANN, but has not been implemented yet.

Edmon Chung of dotAsia has said repeatedly that this 'feature' of the DNS must work from day 1 of the launch of .IDNs, because chinese users expect it to 'just work'. I tend to believe Edmon since he has no vested interest in the current new gTLD round (as far as I know) plus he's always been doing great policy work in the past.
Anyways, I think too it's a must that variants are implemented before any Chinese strings are launched.

Variants also occur in other languages, but it would be fair to say that they are not as urgent, except perhaps for the .com-in-arabic string which has as a variant the farsi(persian) string for .com
Until TLD variants are implemented, typing what looks like .com-in-arabic on a persian keyboard will not work, as a the persian codepoints will not form a valid TLD that is mapped to the 'true' .com-in-arabic.


As for single char TLDs, see : http://www.idnforums.com/forums/33825-whats-up-with-single-character-tlds.html

:eek:

[Avtal]

It's simply variants at the top level, example .游戏(simplified) and .遊戲(traditional)

One would expect that
whatever.游戏 and whatever.遊戲
resolve to the same place, or at least would be controlled by the same entity. (such is the case in some ccTLDs)

The mechanism to achieve that is being worked on by ICANN, but has not been implemented yet.


OK, thanks, I think I see now. The ICANN material (here (http://www.icann.org/en/resources/idn/variant-tlds)) was helpful, though voluminous.

As I understand the current state, if an applicant succeeds in getting the .游戏 gTLD in round one, then .遊戲 is blocked. The plan is to create Label Generation Rules so that 遊戲 would be generated from 游戏, the owner of .游戏 would thus be given the rights to .遊戲, and both would be delegated in the root. ICANN would also create some rules based on the User Experience Report (http://www.icann.org/en/resources/idn/variant-tlds/active-ux-21mar13-en.pdf) (which is pretty interesting; it explains how different registries currently handle variants). These rules would require consistency between (or among) the variant gTLDs. All these rules are supposed to be completed in the first half of 2014.

So if someone has already applied for .游戏 (I'm too lazy to check if anyone has), they will perhaps also be given .遊戲 sometime next year, if the ICANN Variant TLD Program finishes on time, and if the registry is able to implement all the rules. Until then, .遊戲 will be blocked, and only .游戏 will resolve.

My own guess is that this particular ICANN program won't finish on time.

Avtal