[council] Cont'd page 2 - Issues consideration for IDN ISSUE report

["Sophia B" <sophiabekele@xxxxxxxxx>]

Cont'd



Finally, I truly believe *we need policy discussions first *and should at
least consider for discussion the *Katoh-committee recommendations as a
first step*.


Sophia wrote> 3) I may be presumptuous, but ICANN's argument of resorting to

> using DNAME seem to come  from the perspective of how ICANN
> failed to be responsive for long and now "China" and others
> are threatening to "break the single root".  Therefore,
> perhaps, we were left to a single view and a quick solution,
> neglecting to entertain the CHOICES we may have for IDN.  So,
> the easiest implementation approach is DNAME, which is is to
> just give the big registries all the languages without having
> to change much in the technical stuff - ie. just re-point.com
> to every language equivalent - no new TLDs etc.


John wrote:

- Show quoted text -


Actually, I think you misunderstand both the situation and the
history.  First, DNAMEs are, in Internet time, a relatively old
proposal and protocol specification.  I didn't invent them and
neither did Verisign.  Second, there was a proposal from the
original ICANN IDN committee that no IDN TLDs be permitted in
the root except on a separate application for new TLDs process.
For an number of reasons --almost all of them consequences of
how the DNS actually works and what is and is not possible as a
result-- I still believe that was a wise recommendation,
independent of anything China, Verisign, or others might "want"
to do.   Some of those who are still on the GNSO Council will
probably remember that, because of issues with the number of
languages in the world, I recommended that we try to sort out
the use of IDNs at the second level and below in relevant ccTLDs
before permitting them to be used at all... and recommended that
several years before China made essentially the same suggestion
(of course, by the time they made that suggestion, it was
already too late since several gTLDs were doing production IDN
registrations).

Now, there has been a good deal of pressure from a number of
directions to create aliases for country names in national
languages.   That pressure has actually been much more intense,
with more threats, from other directions than from China.  If an
alias is what is really wanted and that alias must, for
technical or political reasons, be in the root, then DNAMEs are
the right way to do so.  Other solutions are simply not aliases,
they are separate domain names.  To me, for separate domain
names, the original IDN Committee/Katoh-san recommendation
should still apply.    As with IDNs below the top level and the
"what languages" question, I understand the idea of an alias for
a ccTLD in the relevant country's national language(s) much
better than I understand what to do about gTLDs.   Indeed, if I
could make recommendations for the GNSO, I would seriously
consider a recommendation that, at least for the next several
years, the top-level IDN issue is, except for possible
completely new applications domains with IDN-style names,
entirely a ccTLD problem and that the gTLDs should not
participate in any way in the evaluation of what is possible and
reasonable other than continuing to register second-level IDNs
under existing rules.



Sophia wrote:

I am aware that DNAMES has existed for a long time as a technical part of
the DNS structure. You and Patrick pointed it out in your recent IETF
document that was circulated. But you also point out DNAMEs was never really
invented with IDN in mind and in fact there is some hesitancy for
"borrowing" it for this purpose of IDN. From my crude understanding the
reasoning appears to be it would be ideal not to use something for which it
was not really intended.



*In any case in my understanding the DNAMEs approach is being championed
right now - it was not the case I believe in the previous 6 years of ICANN
IDN history. *The Katon-committee didn't consider it after 3 years of IDN
history at ICANN. If this thing has been around for as long as the Internet,
then why all of a sudden this proposal is being championed - whatever the
true reasons, it certainly has the suggestions of technical expediency in
the face of potential external threats/pressure.



*Well, its great that you bring up the Katoh-committee recommendations that
you too seem to agree with *, and at some level these are against the grain
of the direction in which a DNAMES like deployment would head - awarding
incumbent existing gTLD registries equivalents. Saying that DNAMEs is just a
technology and how it need not be given to existing registries in principle
is true technically. But the real issue is that's where it is likely to head
and that's why the POLICY needs to be discussed first. Why are we not even
discussing them after having invested so much time and effort on their
recommendation?



*I understand that the Versign testbed was done badly and everybody
acknowledges that* . Now when China came up with a solution they liked, it
was already too late because we at ICANN had gone ahead and gone beyond "bad
testbed' to actual production registrations under a few major commercial
registries ( gTLDs and ccTLDs I guess) and it was too late to go back.
Perhaps it is no little wonder that the same China and others are now
forging their own path ahead.  *So two mistakes - not just one - presumably
all driven by the stronger commercial registries wanting to increase sales
in their existing ascii TLDs by way of promoting somewhat insulting
two-language/script hybrid domain names. *



If there is pressure from other sources - other than China to move - would
it not be useful or proper for those of us who believe policy issues are
equally or more important than technical testing of fairly well-established
technology (perhaps as old as the Internet you suggested for DNAMES) to know
what these "pressures" are if we as members of various ICANN boards have to
endorse the eventual policy chosen. No matter what the spin from wherever,
it is abundantly clear that the current IDN activity within ICANN after 2 or
3 year relative hiatus, is happening because of considerable external
pressure *.  I am not sure I am speaking for all the GNSO members, but for
my part I generally viewed the pressure from China as the biggest one while
I have heard rumors of others and unhappiness from various other quarters *.
If as you say the pressure from China is not the main one and there are
multiple others, it would appear that we would need to discuss this
pronto!



*Could someone please share this with us? So that our job is NOT to simply
endorse everything.** *

Incidentally I would not be surprised if many of our board members learnt of
the China deployed/commercial activity while reading a recent Wall Street
Journal article. I have since learnt reliably that this activity was
launched initially in a small way with full backing by their Ministry
(published statements by Ministers) more than 4 years ago, and starting
about 18 months ago it has been extensively deployed all over China.  A
large fraction of the 130M+ Chinese Internet population is already
enabled-to use it and many tens of registrars have actually been selling
these domains (which for all external purposes look like real IDN TLDs as
described in the Wall Street Journal article) for well over a year and many
tens of thousands of names registered and in use. A quick visit to the CNNIC
web-site confirms all this.



It would be *nice to know of these things earlier and* not from the likes of
the Wall Street journal.


Sophia wrote> John's statement butters this point:
>
> If a such programmer in China were to decide that, for her
> users to have a good experience, .US and .COM should be able
> to be referenced by using Chinese names, there is nothing that
> the GNSO, ICANN, IETF, ITU, or the Great Pumpkin could do to
> stop or prevent it. Even the control of the Chinese government
> would be _extremely_ limited, since those Chinese names would
> be visible only to users of that particular application with
> that particular extension, and not "on the wire" or to either
> DNS servers or the sites or hosts being reached.
>
> I think if this is the way we have looked at it, it seem that
> our response is shortsighted (because it technical-oriented
> only and did not consider the business issues)  and is perhaps
> why ICANN has failed achieve success in the IDN arena.
> Instead of worrying about the political, policy and cultural
> implications, first, we may have focused on the easy way
> out...technical.   In this case, contrary to what Cary said, I
> think  issuing DNAME is equally reckless as using new TLDs in
> IDN.


> The fact that the Chinese has already launched this process
> (if we out to call them reckless)  and ICANN who ought to know
> better, is forced to 'follow' the same (can we call ICANN
> "reckless") as well?  Uhmm.


John wrote:

- Show quoted text -


Again, please understand enough about how the DNS works, and how
name resolution and applications on the Internet work more
generally, to be able to understand what is said above.  The
Chinese have not already "launched" anything along the lines of
what I suggested.  That proposal is not "technical-oriented
only" and does consider the business issues (even if the
business and cultural issues it considers critical might not be
the same ones you would choose).  That proposal was actually
almost exclusively focused on political, policy, and cultural
issues -- many of the technical folks, who prefer a less complex
world, actually don't like it.  And that proposal is not, in any
way, related to DNAMEs -- it is a third alternative.

As to whether "issuing DNAME" is "equally reckless" as "using
new TLDs in IDN" (whatever that means), I would, again,
encourage you to understand what is being proposed and what its
technical implications are, if only because doing so is
prerequisite to talking intelligently about the business issues
(or even most of the political and cultural ones).  The "new
domain" issues are simply a superset (a rather large superset)
of those associated with DNAMEs.  DNAMEs supply aliases but, as
I pointed out long before the GNSO became actively concerned
with this, one still needs to decide who gets which names and
what they point to.  New domains raise the much more complex
issues of allocations and operation, and domain-specific
policies as well as those of name selection and assignment,
issues that are largely invisible from the DNAME case.

Could one adopt a DNAME model and reserve names for later
"independent TLD" allocation?  Of course.  Could one restrict
the DNAMEs that would be associated with gTLDs to some limited
set, or even to zero if that were felt to be wise?  Of course.
There is nothing that is "all languages in the world or nothing"
about any of the proposals I have heard seriously raised.


Sophia wrote> *Ok, pls correct me if I am wrong when I am trying to speak
> DNAME implementation approach:*  eg. CEO of mybrand.com has to
> be protected in every language under a gTLD that means "com"
> in every language, right ?  meaning they have to come up with
> 200 language translations of ".com" and ICANN can approve
> DNAMES.


John wrote:
No, they do not.  And the fact that they do not is actually one
of the attractions of the DNAME approach (except to the
registrars and registries who are anxious to mount "there is now
another new domain in which you need to register to protect your
brand... please send money" campaigns.  _That_ approach requires
separate domains).

Sophia wrote>  Then these companies, like Versign, can go and get
> everyone of their.com name holders (40 million in this case)
> names translated / transliterated into 200 languages to
> everyone's satisfaction and register them all to get 200 x 45
> million DNAMES.   *I hope I am on right track so far.*

John wrote:

No, you are not.  Please read the comments above and, more
important, please make an effort to understand how the DNS works
in general and how DNAMEs work in particular.

 Sophia> Are they also going to charge the CUSTOMER (who has already paid
> some $6 already) for the translation/transliteration work?
> Also, if the customer then is upset by the accuracy of
> translation or if the customer is sued by some other third
> party saying that the wrong translation now impinges on their
> own business, will VERISIGN pay for all lawsuit damages? I am
> almost certain that these companies will NOT agree to this -
> but this is the result of DNAMES.

John wrote:
No, it is not.

Sophia> Finally, from where I see it, *policy is to be made first in
> complex situations as these.* Technology is a second - fact is
> these systems seem to have been working for years already, as
> China seem to have has deployed it for years on a large scale
> - far larger than anything ICANN has done to date, I believe.

John wrote:
No, China has done something else, and only relatively recently.
Once you understand, throughly, how the DNS works and, in
particular, the difference between the actions of a caching
forwarder and a different TLD, I'll be happy to try to explain
just what they are doing, and why, to you.
...
Sophia wrote> Therefore, as Avil suggested, I propose the alternatives and
> solution should be explored by a joint consultation with
> relevant IDN circles and the Council.


John wrote:
Sure.  As long as the capabilities and operations of the DNS are
sufficiently well understood, and at a policy level, the range
and scope of potential ICANN authority is reasonably well
understood, that discussions of policies that imply flat earths
and more convenient values of PI are avoided.  Otherwise, while
the discussions would certainly be interesting, the GNSO will
waste its time and the world will ignore ICANN and move forward
on its own path.

Sophia wrote> I myself recommend the POLICY option.   Go for a solution
> letting the people speaking a specific language (or script as
> they like to say) is a part of their culture – to take care
> of it.  We can talk about specific implementation strategies
> once we agree with the policy option!

---- John wrote:

   First, the proposal that comes closest to the type of solution
you seem to propose above is one that you have rejected out of
hand.

*Sophia wrote:  *Answering each of your points in order* *

*First,* I have come to understand that technical people tend to view things
in only technically acceptable terms, and in this case multilingual domain
names serving the need for non-English speakers to reach web-sites in their
own character sets.   *However, in my experience, in the real world -
particularly so in disenfranchised parts of the world - often choices are
made that cannot only be technically acceptable but they must also be
"emotionally" acceptable*.  My understanding is that for IDNs the peoples of
the different languages would strongly prefer an approach where IDN TLDs in
so much as possible mirror and be "parallel" to ASCII TLDs. (and saying
ASCII is not English is a worthless argument that only the adamantly
technical people insist on - the wise accept the emotional reality and work
around it). Thus the "proposal I am to have rejected out of hand" lacks the
emotional merits of IDN TLDs that work more in a "parallel" manner. And
emotion has a lot do with it - one can build highly efficient and better
designer homes but everyone still wants a "doll house" to live in.

John wrote:

----Second, scripts and not the same as languages and people
don't speak scripts: not understanding the difference can only increase your
confusion.

Sophia wrote:

*Second*, *it is refreshing to know that there are knowledgeable individuals
like you who work so hard to decrease the confusion of the less gifted like
me.** *   I suppose the fact that *the Amharic script* is used for various
languages in Ethiopia and Somalia including *Amharic*, Tigre and Tigrinya by
a mere 30 million or so people, all without the benefit of the great
knowledge you have, must leave them all confused and speaking in twisted
tongues and many languages at once, *just like me.*   And I can only be ever
so grateful for having escaped that many-language-to-one-script mess to
speaking the one-script-to-one-language-English (even though I hear some
rumors that some 200 million Indonesians may have borrowed it too*).  *However,
I admit I must also be not so good at English, since I cannot understand the
phrase "scripts and not the same as languages" in your discussion above.**



John wrote:

--Third, as long as the DNS is to remain
a global resource, a solution that involves letting those who
speak a particular language to "take care of it" and go in their
own direction is essentially impossible.  Or, to put it
differently, it is possible in only two ways: with client-level
aliasing (which you have rejected) and with different DNS roots
for each language group.   The latter is inconsistent with both
unambiguous global references on a global Internet and, by the
way, with your having any possible hope of protecting your
business name or trademark globally... except by legal action in
each country in which a similar name might be used

 *Sophia wrote:*

*  Third,* the *notion of different roots for different languages is
impossible you suggest*.  But from my understanding recent reports suggest
that some 100M + people in China (maybe accounting for some half of the
world's truly IDN-needy population) have been enabled to do just that for
over a few years, with no deaths or no calamities reported. I understand
that you have been quoted in the press as suggesting that the Chinese are
solving this by "appending" .cn in English characters and thus not really
dealing with a different root.  *However even the BBC quotes eminent
Internet-aware professors and Cambridge university researchers as having
tested the Chinese deployment and that there is much much, more to it than
meets the eye (see links below) *and that the long-deployed system is in
essence a different language root or very close to it.   I also understand,
that in past years, many technical people have talked about so-called
multiple roots-of-authority - I believe these include prominent previous
ICANN Board of Directors like Karl Auberach etc.  I am puzzled why you think
it's impossible, unless in a very very narrow sense but then again my lot in
life seems to be always confused.**

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4779660.stm


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4767972.

As for the "tragedy" that one would have to legally protect one's business
names and trademarks as domain names in every sovereign country
independently, I think that is exactly what we do with trademarks today and
it would appear its no more onerous to protect one's domains in conjunction
with trademark protection than just trademark protection, if your business
needs that protection in country "x" (domains cost far less than trademark
protection).  *And I believe that is why sovereign-nation states exist.*   Of
course one can solve it all by simply globalizing the whole world into one
federated galactic empire and put Captain Kirk in charge of it.   And while
at it, we could force everyone to learn English - then the problem simply
goes away.


Should have thought of that, far easier than solving these intractable
technical problems that only the Chinese and certain largest-European ISPs
like Tiscali seem to be rumored to be able to solve.