Grandfathering for IDN transliterations of existing gTLDs by Verisign and PIR

[Falko Neuhaus <sales@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The IDN gTLD applications by Verisign and PIR should be treated as a 
special case within the new gTLDs. That’s because these aren’t 
completely new but transliterations of the existing gTLDs .com, .net and 
.org.
IDN already exist at the second level for these extensions. This could 
be a cause for confusion by internet users if these don’t resolve to the 
same destinations as their IDN.IDN equivalents. Extensions like .コムor 
.орг are not only used by website owners for branding already but also 
phonetically identical to .com and .org. Therefore they are likely to be 
seen as equivalents by the majority of internet users. A more detailed 
explanation on the confusion potential of IDN transliterations of 
existing TLDs can be found here: 
http://www.icann.org/en/news/correspondence/zhang-to-icann-01oct12-en
In order to prevent such confusion Verisign and PIR should be 
contractually bound to allocate usage rights for IDN.IDN versions to the 
second level registrants of the equivalent IDN.com/.net/.org with some 
sort of „grandfathering“ mechanism. Verisign has proposed this but 
didn’t mention it in their applications: 
http://forum.icann.org/lists/gnso-idng/msg00232.html . So in accord with 
this proposal only the registrant of пример.com (example) should be 
given the usage rights for пример.ком.
Falko Neuhaus,

Germany