RE: [gnso-idn-wg] 4.1.5

["Shahram Soboutipour" <ceo@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear All

 

I would like to say that we in Iran number in the tens of millions.  We agree 
that there should be objective yardstick to prioritize our written script is 
also from right to left, very opposite "distance to ASCII".

 

Also I would like to state, being a Muslim country, the business methods - 
accounting etc. and books are quite different from Western style and many 
financial issues are different for us. Also the level of technical things - 
like ISP uptime, or reliable power is not as high as in USA or Europe - but 
they are sufficient for Farsi people living in my region. Its okay for them - 
just like they don't expect the same level of phone service as in Western 
Europe or Korea. So the technical and financial criteria must be chosen 
differently. I think best way is for people from the Farsi community and from 
the local region where most users will be should be consulted to decide what 
the appropriate level of applicant criteria should be at the start of the gTLD 
selection process.

This point is very important for poorer countries like us.

 

Regards,

 

 <BLOCKED::mailto:soboutipour@xxxxxxxxxxx> Shahram Soboutipour

President and CEO

 <BLOCKED::http://www.karmania.ir/> Karmania Media

Tel: +98 341 2117844,5

Mobile: +98 913 1416626

Fax: +98 341 2117851

<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center tabindex=-1> 

From: owner-gnso-idn-wg@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-idn-wg@xxxxxxxxx] On 
Behalf Of Sophia B
Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2007 4:10 AM
To: Alexei Sozonov
Cc: Tan Tin Wee; rmohan@xxxxxxxxxxxx; gnso-idn-wg@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [gnso-idn-wg] 4.1.5

 

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  <mailto: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").
>>
>>