Re: [gnso-idn-wg] One string per application

["Tan, William" <William.Tan@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I would say that this is rather language- or script-specific. In your
example of .com, I too find it heard to decide if the three variants are
meant to be the same or different. Part of the problem may be that it is
abbreviated, so .kom could well be an abbreviation for something other
than "kommerz". Even if it was indeed abbreviated from "kommerz", the
language is different.

In the example I raised, however, they are both words in the same
language - Chinese. Therefore, a user residing in Taiwan is likely to
enter the former, while users in China would enter the latter. Most
Chinese users in either areas, though, are likely to recognize both
forms as equivalent.

On the premise that the two strings are widely regarded as similar,
users would be confused if:
1. They can use one form but not the other (by only having one form and
not the other, we could potentially be locking out an entire region of
users.)
2. Typing different forms get them to completely different web sites, as
might be the case if the different forms are run by different registry
operators.

This is essentially bringing RFC3743 bundling to the top level. If our
recommendation is to loosen the "One string per application" rule it
should only apply to certain narrow cases.

--
=wil
http://xri.net/=wil

Mike Rodenbaugh wrote:
> Thanks Wil.  This makes some sense to me, but I have trouble understanding 
> how you differentiate between situation with .com, .kom, and .com with an 
> umlaut?  I guess you are focusing on user utility, rather than user 
> confusion, but I don't see much difference.
>
> Mike Rodenbaugh
>
> Sr. Legal Director
>
> Yahoo! Inc.
>
>  
>
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-gnso-idn-wg@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-idn-wg@xxxxxxxxx] On 
> Behalf Of Tan, William
> Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2007 2:32 PM
> To: gnso-idn-wg@xxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [gnso-idn-wg] One string per application
>
> Dear all,
>
> This may be a bit premature but I'll bring it up anyway given that we 
> will eventually get to the "Existing gTLD Strings" topic, and that the 
> following has at least some overlap with the "Introduction of New gTLDs" 
> topic that we discussed in the last call.
>
> In one of the documents that Olof sent out in preparation of the Feb 6 
> calls, we had the following bullet point under "Existing gTLD Strings":
>
>     4.1 Agreement that the approach of the New gTLD PDP is one string 
> for each application.
>
> Have we considered provisions for TLDs in scripts that require bundling? 
> This is at least applicable to Chinese domain names, where variants are 
> widely regarded as necessary for proper utility of the TLD (or, more 
> generally, the domain name.)
>
> For example, if someone were to apply for .西雅? (Traditional Chinese 
> transliteration of Seattle), it would only make sense to have .西雅图 as 
> well so that people who use Simplified Chinese (China, Singapore) can 
> expect to find it. By restricting applications to a single string, the 
> utility of the TLD would be vastly reduced.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Best regards,
> =wil
>
>
>