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Call for Volunteers: Implementation Review Team

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Translation and Transliteration of Contact Information

On 28 September 2015, the ICANN Board of Directors adopted the recommendations of the Translation and Transliteration of Contact Information Working Group (TTWG) as listed in its Final Report. Staff from the Global Domains Division (GDD)—responsible for leading the implementation of the policy recommendations—is hereby issuing a call for volunteers to form an Implementation Review Team (IRT) to provide support for the project.

This call for IRT volunteers is for the attention of the members of the TTWG at a minimum. The key responsibilities of the IRT are as follows:

  • Work with ICANN staff to ensure that the implementation fulfills the original intentions of the approved policy recommendations
  • Review the proposed implementation work plan as drafted by staff for the recommendations as approved by the Board
  • Assist in case of questions or need for clarification related to the adopted recommendations
  • Advise on technical and operational details related to implementation of recommendations by contracted parties  

Familiarity with the policy recommendations as well as the deliberations that informed those recommendations from the TTWG's work is a minimum requirement for IRT members. The IRT will also be tasked with implementing those recommendations from the Internationalized Registration Data Working Group's (IRDWG) final report deemed consistent with the recommendations of the Translation and Transliteration implementation, as directed by Board Resolution 2016.03.10.07.

All volunteers responding to this call are to understand the role and remit of the IRT for the implementation project. If the IRT identifies potential modifications to the policy or recommendations, the team will refer these to the GNSO Council for its consideration and additional guidance.

How to apply

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to the GNSO Secretariat via

gnso-secs@icann.org before Monday, 13 June 2016, 11:59 UTC.

Background

The Translation and Transliteration of Contact Information is an ICANN Consensus Policy emerging from a Policy Development Process (PDP) within the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) that began in June 2013. It addressed two central issues:

  1. Whether it is desirable to translate WHOIS contact information to a single common language or transliterate contact information to a single common script
  2. Who should decide who would bear the burden of translating contact information to a single common language or transliterating contact information to a single common script

The recommendations that emerged from the team's work are as follows:

  1. The Working Group recommends that it is not desirable to make transformation of contact information mandatory.
  2. Whilst noting that a WHOIS replacement system should be capable of receiving input in the form of non-ASCII script contact information, the Working Group recommends its data fields be stored and displayed in a way that allows for easy identification of what the different data entries represent and what language(s)/script(s) have been used by the registered name holder.
  3. The language(s) and script(s) supported for registrants to submit their contact information data may be chosen in accordance with gTLD- provider business models
  4. Regardless of the language(s)/script(s) used, the data fields are to be consistent with standards in the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA), relevant Consensus Policy, Additional WHOIS Information Policy (AWIP) and any other applicable polices. Entered contact information data are validated, in accordance with the aforementioned Policies and Agreements and the language/script used must be easily identifiable.
  5. If the transformation of contact information is performed, and if the WHOIS replacement system is capable of displaying more than one data set per registered name holder entry, these data should be presented as additional fields (in addition to the authoritative local script fields provided by the registrant) and that these fields be marked as transformed and their source(s) indicated
  6. Any WHOIS replacement system, for example the Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP), should remain flexible so that contact information in new scripts/languages can be added and expand its linguistic/script capacity for receiving, storing and displaying contact information data.
  7. These recommendations should be coordinated with other WHOIS modifications where necessary and implemented and/or applied as soon as a WHOIS replacement system that can receive, store and display non-ASCII characters, becomes operational.