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Message from Ben Turner to Paul Twomey
17 November 2003
From: Turner, Ben
Sent: Monday, November 17, 2003 7:42 AM
To: 'Paul Twomey'
Cc: 'Nelle Connell'; 'John Jeffrey'; 'Kurt Pritz'; Golden, Kevin; Gomes, Chuck; Lewis, Rusty
Subject: VGRS and IDN
November 15, 2003
Dr. Paul Twomey
President and CEO
International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 330
Marina del Rey, CA 90292
Ref: VeriSign IDN Authorization
Dear Paul:
This letter serves as a follow-up to your conversation of November 13, 2003 with Rusty Lewis concerning the authorization for VeriSign to commercially launch its IDN program. In our letter dated October 13, 2003, we outlined the specific implementation points for each guideline of the RFC's. Per your request, this letter summarizes the key elements of our implementation.
VeriSign would like to deploy systems that accept registrations according the RFC's in December 2003. Until April 2004, VeriSign will permit registrars to continue to send registrations to the registry in the old format to accommodate their development schedule. However, no RACE registrations will be submitted to the SRS. VeriSign will convert these RACE registrations to the IDN standards prior to committing a registration to the SRS. The migration window will end in April 2004 when all registrars will be required to submit registrations in the identified RFC format.
On December 2003, all registration submissions will be required to contain a language tag. At launch, VeriSign will be associating each registration with only one language. Each Registrar will be permitted to select a default language tag such that they do not have to integrate the language tag for their registrants into their purchase flow. This default language tag will not be permitted to be "none".
VeriSign's IDN marketing and promotional support will be concentrated upon Korea, Japan, China and those countries in which the local country NIC has launched their IDN program.
As of April 2004, VeriSign will open OTE for Registrars which will include changes to the December implementation as follows:
We look forward to receiving ICANN's authorization to implement PUNY code in our IDN program as soon as possible. Please let me know if you have questions.
Sincerely,Ben Turner
Vice President
VeriSign Naming Services