[ssac-gnso-irdwg] Actions/Discussion Points: IRD-WG 01 March Meeting

[Julie Hedlund <julie.hedlund@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear IRD-WG members,

Below are the action items and main discussion points from the 01 March 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 March at 1400 UTC, 06:00 PST, 09:00 EST, 14:00 
London, 15:00 CET, 22:00 Beijing, 23:00 Japan; 16 March 03:00 New Zealand.

Best regards,

Julie

Julie Hedlund, Director, SSAC Support

Attendees: Edmon Chung, Co-Chair, James Galvin, Lisa Lennon, Owen Smigelski; 
from staff: Steve Sheng, Glen de Saint Gery and Julie Hedlund. Apologies from: 
Eric Iriarte Ahon, Jay Daley, Rafik Dammak, Yao Jiankang, Mark Kosters, Steve 
Metalitz, and Ram Mohan

Actions Items: Staff will provide more information about the UPU standard.

Discussion Summary:
The staff first summarized the working group progress up to date to the new 
working group members. Members of the working group then deliberated on the 
issue of internationalizing registrant information and postal addresses. The 
question discussed was, “is it desirable to adopt an English representation of 
data, in conjunction with local character set support with regard to registrant 
information and mailing address?”

Staff summarized WG members’ position on this question in past deliberations, 
that
--Requiring a English representation may present a barrier to those who do not 
know English.
--Requiring a English representation may be necessary to contact registrants 
from different countries.

Various members expressed their opinions on this issue:
--Some felt that registrants should not be required to know English to register 
a domain, and expressed concern that if we require English in Whois, who is 
going to translate and how do we make sure that translation is sensible and 
correct.

The WG discussed how should move forward on this particular issue:
--Edmon Chung, Co-Chair, wondered whether a useful way forward would be to 
consider whether a internationalized Whois should have backward compatibility 
with ASCII.
--Some WG members suggested the next step forward is to list all available 
options, and deliberate on the pros and cons of each. One option is not 
requiring registrants input English, but requiring registrars to publish points 
of contact to deal with translation issues, or for registrars to perform 
translation.

The WG members also discussed the UPU standard for international addressing: 
Background: Article RL 123.3.3 specified that "The addressee's address shall be 
worded in a precise and complete manner. It shall be written very legibly in 
roman letters and Arabic numerals. If other letters and figures are used in the 
country of destination, it shall be recommended that the address be given also 
in these letters and numerals.” (Annex 2, 
http://www.upu.int/post_code/en/addressing_and_postcode_manual_en.pdf) 
Essentially this is requiring mailing addresses in roman letters and they 
optionally be put into scripts of country of destination as well.

Other Discussions:
Some WG members noted that in the IETF working group of email address 
internationalization (EAI), there is a concept of downgrading from 
internationalized names, and that downgrading would require a handshake 
protocol that may not be possible for Whois.