Public Comment

Public Comment is a vital part of our multistakeholder model. It provides a mechanism for stakeholders to have their opinions and recommendations formally and publicly documented. It is an opportunity for the ICANN community to effect change and improve policies and operations.

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4) Is the proposed Next Round Applicant Guidebook language for Internationalized Domain Names (Topic 25: IDNs) consistent with the relevant SubPro Final Report recommendations?
No

If no, please explain

It mentions Recommendation 3.17 of EPDP Phase 1 Final Report in the Annex which says: single-character gTLDs may only be allowed for limited scripts and languages where a character is an ideograph.…… the only script that meets the criteria is the Han script……applications for single-character gTLDs that are ideographs must not be accepted until relevant guidelines from the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Generation Panels are developed, finalized after Public Comment, and implemented in the New gTLD Program. ICANN requested feedback of the Considerations for the Application of Han Script Single Character IDN gTLD in June. As of August 18th, a total of 18 comments have been collected, providing different feedback from various aspects such as security and stability, cultural and language challenges, technical issues, user experience and public interest, as well as policy and internationalization needs. Most of them called for not opening or at least taking more careful consideration of taking single-character of Han scripts as gTLDs. Before the guidelines approved, I hereby highlight two possible public policy issues regarding the single-character gTLD of Han scripts. One hand, bi-character or poly-character of Han scripts are the mainstream direction for the use of contemporary Chinese. Due to the features of polysemy and polyphony, using a single-character of Han scripts alone can lead to ambiguity and confusion, and more likely influence the user experience seriously. On the other hand, the similarities in pronunciation, form, and meaning of Han script single-character gTLD could lead to the risks of phishing, homophone attacks, intellectual property disputes, etc, which increased the difficulty of domain name management and governance. In a nutshell, from my point of view, single-characters of Han scripts are not suitable as gTLDs until the relevant issues are properly resolved.