Re: [gnso-idn-wg] One string per application

["Tan, William" <William.Tan@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bruce Tonkin wrote:
> It is worth separating the issue of being granted a particular TLD
> string, and the issue of strings that maybe be typographically similar.
I agree that they are separate issues.

> In the example you quote above, a registry operator could apply for one or 
> both strings.   If the operator was granted both strings then the operator 
> would need to decide whether example.西雅?  and example.西雅图 would map to 
> the same nameserver.
>   
Right, this is an aliasing issue.

> If the registry operator applied for only one string and was granted the 
> string, then it would be difficult for another registry operator to gain 
> approval for the other string given its typographical similarity.
>   
Agreed.

> So I don't think the reigstry operator "needs" to apply for both, but there 
> may be a commercial advantage in doing so with two applications.
>   
I'm not suggesting a MUST in the policy. Rather, I'm questioning whether
we should restrict to "ONE string per application" as this is a case
where MORE THAN ONE string is a legitimate use case. So, this is the
part that is relevant to the "Introduction of New gTLD" issue that we
discussed last week.

> Note this issue is not specific to IDNs - e.g consider in ASCII com, c0m etc. 
>    I don’t see that a registry operator should be compelled to apply for, or 
> be granted, every possible typographic variation of their chosen string.   
>   
Please see my reply to Mike. I would argue that in ASCII, the DNS has
"moved along" with regards to "1" to "L" and "0" and "o" confusability.
Even in IDN in the context of Latin languages, it is generally accepted
that users should learn how to distinguish characters with accent from
the plain letters.

The Han case is fairly unique in the sense that the CJK communities has
recommended that certain characters be mapped together due to their
semantic similarities. The predominant variants are between the
Simplified Chinese (SC) and Traditional Chinese (TC) characters. SC
characters were modified from the traditional form and are used in
mostly the same way by people in different countries. However, they have
different codepoints in Unicode/ISO-10646.

While a registry operator do not *have* to apply for variants, if
they're applying for a Han string that has variants chances are they
would want to apply for them. In fact, I would go as far as arguing for
a recommendation to apply for them in order to avoid user confusion.
This is, again, a narrow use case for the Han script that one can find
these policies mirrored in existing registries that offer Chinese IDNs
on the second level (as compared to registries that offer IDNs in Latin
scripts.)

Cheers,
=wil