CDNC's comments on Single Character IDN TLDs

[Nai-Wen Hsu <snw@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Chinese Domain Name Consortium (CDNC) appreciates the opportunity to
comment on the JIG Initial Report on Single Character IDN TLDs
(http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/public-comment-201009-en.htm#jig-initial-report).
Members of the CDNC have addressed relevant IDN string length issues in
various forums and occasion, and our core concern is that for Internet
community, especially for those who has been working on the development
of IDN ccTLD and gTLD policy, it is very important to understand that
modern Chinese character sets -- a collection of logographic and
syllabic scripts (generally referred as square script), is unique and
different than other main script / writing systems like
Latin-Cyrillic-Latin, Arabic (or Abjad in general), etc.

 Chinese characters have been developed along different ways, such
as the pictographic, indicative, associative,
pictographic-phonetic, referential and synonymic ways. This is unlike
Latin-Cyrillic-Latin system that a single character usually contains no
actual meaning. A Chinese character has in itself an actual meaning, and
can effectively illustrate or describe an activity, a general concept,
or a community. We believe that having the flexibility of string length
from one to many Chinese characters shall help increase the usability,
market awareness, and full adoption of IDN.

Therefore, it is our consensus to support Chinese Single-Character IDN
TLD in the DNS system as described in the JIG interim paper on the
condition that any single-character IDN TLDs should pose no confusingly
meaningful similarity to IDN ccTLDs. We also agree with the JIG's
position that Issues such as character similarity, stability / security,
and protection on geographic names shall be managed and resolved in the
New gTLD program or IDN ccPDP, where applicable.  We certainly welcome
the opportunity to collaborate closely with ICANN staff and relevant
technical community on implementation plan.