[ssac-gnso-irdwg] ACTIONS/DISCUSSION POINTS: Meeting 21 December 2009

[Julie Hedlund <julie.hedlund@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear IRD-WG members,

Below are the action items and main discussion points from the 21 December 
meeting of the IRD-WG.  These also are on the wiki at: 
https://st.icann.org/int-reg-data-wg/index.cgi?internationalized_registration_data_working_group.
   Please let me know if you have any changes or questions.  Our next meeting 
is scheduled for Monday, 04 January at 1400 UTC, 06:00 PST, 09:00 EST, 14:00 
London, 15:00 CET.

Best wishes for a wonderful holiday and a Happy New Year!

Julie

Julie Hedlund, Director, SSAC Support

1. Action Items: Dave Piscitello will provide a draft of a list of topics 
(DONE) for the Working Group to consider as possible study topics.

2. Main Discussion Points: Dave Piscitello suggested that a possible 
requirement for international registration data could include a way to identify 
the character set so one could know what was being displayed, particularly if 
more than one language is present.   It also could be useful for the 
information to be machine readable so that a computer can know what character 
set and identify individual characters.  This requirement could include a 
feature to present someone from submitting illegal characters. Steve Crocker 
noted that the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) might have some expertise in 
this area.  He sent a message to Thomas Roessler who also indicated that it 
could be good to engage them.  Edmon Chung agreed that this is a helpful 
suggestion. Dave added that, if the Working Group agreed, this could be an 
optional requirement for local scripts and emphasized that the requirement 
could only apply to the domain name, rather than other information (such as the 
registrant address).  Edmon suggested that a language tag for domain names 
might not be useful to guess the character set.  He added that besides having 
some sort of tag the Working Group should consider whether we want blocks of 
data and how we would encode it, rather than a recommendation to encode each 
field of data.  Dave noted that there already is a standard for domain name 
encoding so the Working Group does not need to go beyond IDN guidelines.  
However, Working Group members noted that for domain name registration you 
might have more than one script in the domain name and some of these might 
include characters (such as hyphens) that could otherwise be restricted because 
they could be used for malicious purposes.  Edmon asked what is the next step 
for the Working Group.  Julie Hedlund noted that the Charter lists as the 
primary deliverable a study of the feasibility and suitability of introducing 
display specifications to deal with the internationalization of Registration 
Data.   Edmon suggested that as a next step staff could assist by drafting a 
list of three to five areas of specific concern, which the Working Group could 
review on the email list and discuss at the next meeting.  Issues could include 
1) domain name/IDN - is there an additional field that should be displayed; and 
2) whether there should be a block for each contact or each domain, or have the 
whole set in a different language.  Dave agreed to draft an initial list to 
post to the IRD-WG email list for review and comment.