APRALO Response on Draft Proposal for the Study of Issues Related to the Delegation of IDN Variant TLDs

["Edmon Chung" <edmon@xxxxxxx>]

APRALO welcomes the proposed studies on IDN Variant TLDs.

IDN TLDs are critical for the Asia Pacific Internet community. Without the
delegation of preferred IDN Variants, the IDN TLD process is incomplete.

The IDN Variant TLD issue is well understood in the Asia Pacific Internet
community.  Comprehensive studies for Chinese, Indic and Arabic have been
conducted.  Especially for the Chinese community, the issue has studied for
over a decade since 2000, and there is ample IDN Variant policy
implementation and operational experience.

While we are encouraged that ICANN is finally recognizing the criticality of
the delegation of IDN Variant TLDs, we also encourage ICANN to recognize the
work that is already done by the community.  Most importantly, we strongly
suggest to ICANN to complete its adoption of bottom-up developed IDN Variant
policies for the language communities where policy and operational
experience is already mature and proven.

Regarding the proposed studies, the separation of the work into different
case studies provides an appropriate direction.  We expect this would help
pave the way to ensure that delays or complications for one (or more) cases
will not impede the progress for the others.

Finally, the composition of the case study teams would be crucial to the
success of the studies.  The policy and operational expertise from the Asia
Pacific community, who has been working on the IDN Variant issue for an
extended period of time should be leveraged by all study teams.

We believe that the APRALO should be consulted to identify appropriate
members to participate in the case studies.

Furthermore, whereas a reasonable size for the teams is important to ensure
workable efficiency and effectiveness, an inclusive approach, especially for
observers would also be essential for the completeness and support of the
work produced.


APRALO