IDN Variant TLD Program – Interim Report Examining the User Experience Implications of Active Variant TLDs

The IDN Variant TLD Program has been exploring the issues associated with the potential inclusion of IDN variant TLDs in the DNS root zone at the request of the ICANN Board and the community.

Should ICANN activate variant TLDs in the root, many parts of the Internet ecosystem will be affected, with corresponding impacts on the user experience. Examples of user roles that have been identified previously include registrants, registrars, registry operators, system administrators, network operators, application developers, and end users. As the coordination body for the DNS, ICANN has a responsibility to investigate possible impacts of new developments, and to proactively identify and publicize potential issues.

To better understand and address these challenges, the interim report: 1) summarizes and compares, from a user experience and registry management perspective, variant practices in several ccTLD registries; 2) proposes a set of guiding principles to define an acceptable user experience; and 3) identifies how various users communities (e.g., end users, system/network administrators, application developers, registrants, registrars and registries) will be impacted by active variant top-level domains.

The proposed guiding principles and the list of identified challenges are neither considered comprehensive nor final. By publishing this interim report, we seek to establish a dialog with the community to refine these principles and impacts, which will guide the second part of the study to formulate the guidelines and recommendations for active variant TLDs.

Based on the input received in this public forum, ICANN will produce a draft final report that incorporates the community feedback, with proposed guidelines and recommendations for active variant TLDs. The draft final report will be published for second round of Public Comment in January 2012.

On 20 April 2011, ICANN announced the IDN Variant Issues Project to explore the issues associated with the potential inclusion of IDN variant TLDs in the DNS root zone. This project was initiated in response to a 2010 ICANN Board of Directors resolution. The project completed with the publication of the final Integrated Issues Report on 17 February 2012.

The IDN Variant TLD Program follows on from that work. The Program consists of several projects, and continues as a multi-phase multi-year program. The Program Plan was announced – after substantial public input and comment - on 23 August 2012.

This project considers the user experience implications when two or more IDN variant TLDs are activated (i.e., have resource records in the DNS). The study findings are expected to inform the formulation of rules and guidelines for active variant TLDs.