[ssac-gnso-irdwg] Actions/Discussion Points: IRD-WG 01 Feb Meeting
Dear IRD-WG members, Below are the action items and main discussion points from the 01 February 2010 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 <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, 15 February at 1400 UTC, 06:00 PST, 09:00 EST, 14:00 London, 15:00 CET, 22:00 Beijing; 16 February: 03:00 New Zealand. (Note that meetings will alternate between 1900 and 1400 UTC to accommodate various time zones.) Best regards, Julie Julie Hedlund, Director, SSAC Support Attendees: Jay Daley, Robert Hutchinson, Andrei Kolesnikov, Mark Kostas, Steve Metalitz, and Ram Mohan; From staff: Francisco Arias, Glen de Saint-Gery, Gisella Gruber-White, Julie Hedlund, and Steve Sheng Action Items: 1. WG members will continue to provide comments on the list to the draft of a questions related to topic #1 -- “What do we require from internationalized registration data?” See the email archive for the latest discussion at: http://forum.icann.org/lists/ssac-gnso-irdwg/ <http://forum.icann.org/lists/ssac-gnso-irdwg/> . See also the attached summary provided by Steve Sheng of comments received by 25 January, as well as the discussion summary below. 2. Steve Sheng will follow up with Jiankang and Edmon concerning Question 1a and the recommendation to provide output in A-label and U-label format and how this would work for Chinese registries. Main Discussion Points: WG members discussed questions 1a and 1b, continuing from comments provided on the email list and summarized by Steve Sheng. -- Question 1a: 1) What do we require from internationalized registration data: that a user can submit or have a domain name displayed in the IDN A-label (xn--) format or U-label (local language readable) format? WG members agreed that 1) WHOIS must accept a "submit" in either U- or A-label; and 2) WHOIS must "display" both in U- and A-label. There is also an additional recommendation raised by Ram, which would be optional, that bundled representations (e.g. both the simplified and traditional Chinese) of a single A or U-label query should be returned. The WG members asked Steve Sheng to follow up with Jiankang and Edmon concerning their experience with Chinese registries and thoughts on this recommendation. In earlier emails, Jiankang mentioned that A-label input to Whois needs to be checked to confirm that it is a valid IDN. If it is not, error should be returned. This would require changes to the Whois client. -- Question 1b: that registration data be extensible to accommodate users who would benefit from the ability to submit and have registration information displayed in "familiar" characters from local languages and scripts? Much of the discussion focused on Jay’s suggestion that the various elements of registration data could separately internationalized. WG members agreed that the sponsoring registrar name should be displayed in US-ASCII7 subset of the Latin-1 character set. (Note: although some working group members do not fully endorse this idea, they nevertheless think this is acceptable). Ram and Andrei noted that in India and Russia, respectively, the registrar representation is provided in both local script and ASCII. The WG members also agreed that email addresses can be internationalized using RFC 4952 and 5336. The WG members discussed using UPU convention for postal address internationalization. Bob noted that the UPU standard is not computer based and that it is difficult to write a web page to capture manual addresses. Jay added that UPU is a standard that already exists and that the WG should not try to develop a separate standard. This needs to be taken up again in the next meeting. The WG discussed using E123 format to internationalize phone numbers, Ram noted that currently there is no standard for phone numbers in Whois. This issue should be followed up in the next IRD meeting. The rest of the discussion focused on the question of whether or not contact information (include registrant, admin contact name, tech contact name) should at least be displayed in ASCII. WG members presented reasons both for and against: Reasons for at least have ASCII contact information: - Avri noted that it is important for registrant information to be accessible to others. - Ram noted that law enforcement often requires both local and ASCII output and Andrei agreed that was also the case in Russia. Reasons against: - Jay noted that insisting all data is in both the local language and ASCII will not make it universally usable. It will present a barrier for those who does not use English to register, and would introduce errors. - Jay added that a solution would be to offer the information in as many scripts as possible, but that this wasn’t likely to be feasible. WG members also discussed whether their could be a standard for ccTLDs. Jay noted that ccTLDs handle output very differently and that it isn’t in the scope of the IRD-WG’s work to recommend a standard for ccTLDs, although it might be useful to provide a tool kit for each data element. Ram suggested that the WG should hold this topic for later. Andrei noted that it might be helpful to do a survey among non-ASCII ccTLDs on this issue. Ram suggested that the WG should focus on recommendations on output in a local script and some type of standard set, but should not address the issue of confusingly similar character sets. Attachment:
IRD-summary.pdf
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