Using internationalized domain names

Using internationalized domain names is a cool tutorial that discusses the technical issues behind the development of Internationalised Domain Names - so that people who don't use English, can actually use accents, Chinese and Korean, Arabic characters in the whole domain name. Right now, in order to use the Internet you need to know at least SOME English as the top level domain is still in English (ASCII).
This discussion has been going on for a while, but hopefully we are nearing the end of the road, as there is a lot of frustration in the non-ASCII world, and there is the major risk of alternate roots being set up and the "splitting" of the internet.
There are political and policy issues as well that need to be sorted out, and these include the following intellectual property issues:

• Does a registrant holding an ASCII TLD have a prior right to register the same in the IDN version? What about trademark holders?
  
• Would current domain name holders feel forced to register the IDN equivalent for brand protection? That might be seen as a form of extortion.

There's also a lot of other concerns, and this should be REALLY something that the regional groups that say they are interested in the multilingual Internet should be involved in, but I haven't seen a single output from CARDICIS into the ICANN or other IDN processes. OK - so the majority of these processes set upp by ICANN are in English. But is that a reason to ignore the process and then have only the people who are willing and able to participate in English make the decisions for us? Sounds like cutting off our nose to spite our face.

OOOH - ICANN gets slapped by CIRA

CIRA - News Release - Open letter to ICANN
CIRA - the Canadian Internet Registry - has sent a firm letter to the ICANN Board withdrawing financial and other support until principles of transparency and accountability are implemented in the Board decisions!
Finally, fallout from the Verisign deal is starting to hit!

Splitting the root - IDNs and ICANN

Splitting the root
I'm at the ICANN meeting in Wellington, New Zealand. I guess the blog gets a lot more important to me when I'm at these meetings.
So, anyway, we are in the ALAC Policy Discussion meeting. Meeting notes are here.
But this article is good background on the IDN (International Domain Name) issue. What the issue is. Not what we can do about it, but why it's a problem.
One of these issues is here in Bret Fausett's blog.

So - there are technical issues that are being worked on - ICANN has announced a test for the IDN system.
BUT - there are many many policy issues. This is where we really need to get involved.

Splitting the root - IDNs and ICANN

Splitting the root
I'm at the ICANN meeting in Wellington, New Zealand. I guess the blog gets a lot more important to me when I'm at these meetings.
So, anyway, we are in the ALAC Policy Discussion meeting. Meeting notes are here.
But this article is good background on the IDN (International Domain Name) issue. What the issue is. Not what we can do about it, but why it's a problem.

So - there are technical issues that are being worked on - ICANN has announced a test for the IDN system.
BUT - there are many many policy issues. This is where we really need to get involved.

Wiki on Internet User�s Participation in ICANN

Wiki on Internet User�s Participation in ICANN
Thsi is a new wiki set up to assist in working on the following project:

Help to strengthen Civil Rights and Consumer Protection in ICANN�s policies!

The question of how Internet Governance is shaped is one of the central sociopolitical tasks of the coming years. It will be a matter of how consumers and Internet users can become involved in the policy making of ICANN.

There is a civil society element in ICANN, the At-large Advisory Committee (ALAC), composed to represent Internet users, five regions in world each providing 3 representatives. At this point these representatives are chosen by a nominating committee of ICANN and its Board. However, the goal is to build structures to foster participation in the respective regions, and furthermore facilitate the direct election of regional ALAC representatives.