Re: [gnso-idn-wg] 4.1.5

["Sophia B" <sophiabekele@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear All,

I think Tin Wee's point on allowing local applicants or  local
applicants to participate under criteria that they can reasonably meet
is quite important if we want global participation. For example,
speaking as an Ethiopian (where 60M people speak Amharic primarily)
with a great awareness of the technical infrastructure capability in the
region, I can certainly say that if the technical criteria are set too
high - along Western styles - Ethiopian applicants for an Amharic TLD
will be at extreme disadvantage. For example, power outages at a
frequency unacceptable in the West, are a common occurrence in Ethiopia
but everyone accepts that and our phone system and even the current
Ethiopian ASCII ccttld operator make do with it, and ICANN accepts
that.

It maybe unacceptable by stringent Western standards but not by the
standards of the community. Probably if the Ethiopian ccTLD had to pass
present ICANN criteria for a ASCII gTLD it will never qualify.  So we
will need to assess proper lowered criteria  for regional applicants,
unless ICANN wants to de facto simply declare that IDN gTLDs should only
go to the most financially/technically qualified - the Western applicants.

I am not saying we should allow technical instability or not follow
IDNA software standards. The minimum has to be met, just like ASCII ccTLDs
from very poor countries today meet this minimums.

Sophia


On 19/03/07, Alexei Sozonov <sozon@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hello everyone again,
>
> ...reg  4.1.5.
>
> I have already said that in fact Cyrillic as a script covers several
> languages/countries. The population using Cyrillic is very large.
> Just in Russian we have more than 20 million people on the Internet
> already.  In fact we are on the board of the .ru ASCII TLD committee and
> know that .ru has been operating for 10 years and now has several
> hundred thousand domains in .ru.  Even now the total cost of operating
> this
> widely used system is probably less than US$25 000 a year, and certainly
> was less when they first started. For even a big country like Russia ,
> and running a TLD that is quite stable, operational costs are much
> lower. For comparison, an application deposit fee for ASCII gTLD
> applicant to ICANN is $50 000 per applicant. Crazy - and what for???
>
> In ICANN  insurance is mandatory - and it's reasonable
>
> So this financial levels set by ICANN for West (place were money are just
> printed
> on paper for the rest of the world :)  in the past should not be applied,
> if we want
> russian/other applicants participate in fare way. Its quite meaningless.
>
> Alexei
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tan Tin Wee" <tinwee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <rmohan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>; <gnso-idn-wg@xxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 2:21 PM
> Subject: Re: [gnso-idn-wg] 4.1.5
>
>
> > Regarding 4.1.5 which Ram has just initiated,
> >
> > Support for prioritizing languages/scripts for the IDN gTLD launch
> > according to demand/need, possibly using a notion of "distance to ASCII"
> > (for example, by giving higher priority to right-to-left scripts than to
> > "decorated Latin")
> >
> > can be and should be upgraded to agreement, unless we want to quibble
> over
> > whether one can or cannot compare languages and scripts to ASCII ;-)
> >
> > However, I would like to discuss the following because I think it is
> > worthwhile
> > to consider the issue of lower entry barriers. I had previously
> > commented about the success criteria of an IDN deployment at TLD level.
> >
> > I think it is important that we have support, if not agreement by
> > everyone, that in the forthcoming IDN gTLD outcome, we should see
> > some geographical diversity in the winners, and there should be
> processes
> > in place that levels the playing field for newcomers especially from
> > developing
> > countries, for the entry barrriers to be lowered as well as for their
> > technical and operational expertise to be leveled upwards with
> > assistance programmes. I see this as only fair and right thing to do.
> > In this regard, there has to be some degree of preferential treatment
> > during this transient period at the very least. I would like to propose:
> >
> >   Support for preferential and/or fast-tracked prioritized
> >   treatment of applications  from applicants arising from
> >   the particular language/script communities themselves that
> >   are in need of IDN gTLDs so as to achieve inclusivity, for example,
> >   a. through lower financial entry barriers, b. technical and
> operational
> >   criteria that are commensurate with the community which the IDN gTLD
> is
> >   intended to serve, with policies that are crafted in consultation
> >   with the specific language or script-using community, in recognition
> >   of their rights and natural linguistic expertise in their own language
> > and
> >   their specific knowledge of what is appropriate and needed;
> >   where the prioritisation process can involve the utilitarian
> >   measure of an effective user population that stands to benefit
> >   from the deployment of the IDN gTLD applied for.
> >
> > As you rightly put it, we need objective yardsticks,
> > and prioritization stated without objective yardsticks
> > addressing financial entry barriers, and technical and operational
> > difficulties of applicants from developing countries for instance,
> > or the size of the population that will stand to benefit,
> > will only be paying lip service to the currently disenfranchised.
> >
> > bestrgds
> > tw
> >
> >
> > Ram Mohan wrote:
> >> Dear WG Members,
> >>
> >> Currently, 4.1.5 is a Support statement.  I wonder if there are
> >> significant opposing views to this statement, or if we have the
> >> willingness to elevate this "Distance to ASCII" statement to an
> >> Agreement?
> >>
> >>  Although there are many reasons for an IDN gTLD application, arguably
> >> the biggest one is to allow those communities where traditional ASCII
> >> representations, and/or alphabetized representations are inadequate for
> >> domain name labels, are allowed a way to represent their languages
> >> online.  We know that there are only a few remaining barriers to
> >> achieving this.  Should we encourage "distance to ASCII" as an
> objective
> >> yardstick of prioritization?
> >>
> >>  -Ram
> >>
> >> * *
> >>
> >> *4.1.5 *
> >>
> >> *Support* for prioritizing languages/scripts for the IDN gTLD launch
> >> according to demand/need, possibly using a notion of "distance to
> ASCII"
> >> (for example, by giving higher priority to right-to-left scripts than
> to
> >> "decorated Latin").
> >>
> >>