Draft Final Report on Universal Acceptance of IDN TLDs

The joint ccNSO-GNSO IDN working Group (JIG) seeks input from the community on its draft Final Report on Universal Acceptance of IDN TLDs. The draft includes recommendations to the ccNSO and GNSO Councils for further action to resolve policy and other relating to the universal acceptance of IDN TLDs The Working expects to finalize and publish its Final Report, and submit their report, after taking into account the comments received.

The issue of the Universal Acceptance of TLDs (Top-Level Domains) is not new.  The introduction of new gTLDs, especially those that are longer than 3 characters exposed this Universal Acceptance issue in the 2000 experimental expansion round, and was continued to be felt through the 2004 sTLD extension round.  The introduction of IDN ccTLDs through the IDN ccTLD fast track in 2010 further exposed the issue and also made this into an issue of common interest between ccTLDs and gTLDs.

Based on extensive discussion, both in the WG and with the community, the JIG intends to recommend to the ccNSO and GNSO Council that they will recommend:

1. IDN TLD operators (including IDN ccTLD, IDN gTLD and IDN gTLD Accredited Registrars) are recommended to support Universal Acceptance of IDN TLDs in their own systems. Part of this recommendation is that ICANN's IDN Guidelines be updated to include provisions for IDN TLD registries and registrars to support the Universal Acceptance of IDN TLDs within their own systems (i.e. for registration systems and services to accept name server records, child hosts, contact information with IDN TLDs)
2. ICANN should allocate specific resources for the advocacy of Universal Acceptance beyond the development of informational materials and toolkits.
3. ICANN should develop of informative reference materials for new IDN TLDs (including gTLD and ccTLD) to handle issues of Universal Acceptance
4. ICANN initiates efforts, lead by staff, with participation from the community, for further studies to investigate the scope of the issue and what other services or actions could be taken by ICANN to support the Universal Acceptance of IDN TLDs beyond outreach and awareness campaigns

The WG seeks feed-back and input on the specific recommendations.

This is a Final Report from the Joint ccNSO-GNSO IDN Group (JIG) on the recommendations for actions to be taken by ICANN and the ICANN community to address the issue of Universal Acceptance of IDN TLDs in support of the implementation of IDN gTLDs and IDN ccTLDs. The document incorporates the findings from the Initial Report along with the public comments received respectively:

• Initial Report published for public comments: January 6, 2012

• Public Comment period conducted: January 6 – March 23, 2012

• Report of Public Comments: May 23, 2012 [PDF, 188 KB]

The JIG (Joint ccNSO-GNSO IDN Working Group) was created to discuss issues of common interest between the ccNSO and the GNSO on IDNs (Internationalized Domain Names), especially IDN TLDs. The JIG has identified 3 issues of common interest to date:

1. Single Character IDN TLDs

2. IDN TLD Variants

3. Universal Acceptance of IDN TLDs

This report is specific to issue 3. Universal Acceptance of IDN TLDs. This Final Report is submitted to the ccNSO council and the GNSO council respectively for their consideration and adoption according to their own rules and procedures.

The Draft Final Report can be found at: http://ccnso.icann.org/workinggroups/idn-tld-acceptance-final-25jun13-en.pdf [PDF, 135 KB]

Additional Information on the JIG can be found at: http://ccnso.icann.org/workinggroups/jiwg.htm