Policy and Coordination in Multilingual Internet Names Tan Tin Wee Vice Chairman Multilingual Internet Names Consortium (MINC)

Framework of Authority-I IANA NamesNumbersProtocols gTLDsccTLDsAPNIC ARIN RIPE IETF SRI NSI Verisign Country NICs/ Mngrs US Govt Legal Govt Contract

Framework of Authority-II IANA NamesNumbersProtocols gTLDsccTLDsAPNIC ARIN RIPE IETF Verisign/NSICountry NICs/ Mngrs US Govt Registries Registrars Legal Contract Legal Govt Contract ICANN Inc PSOASODNSO Stakeholders: Constituencies At Large etc GAC

Framework of Authority-III Names ICANN Inc DNSO gTLDsccTLDs Verisign/NSICountry NICs/ Mngrs Registries Registrars. root.com.org.net.int etc.us.jp.cn.tv etc TopLevel Domains TLDs example.com geneve.ch elections.org.sg

Framework of Authority - IV US Government Dept of Commerce IANA original authority ICANN is in charge of the Root inter alia ICANN coordinates Insertion of TLDs in the Root Delegates authority to gTLDs and ccTLDs

Justification for authority US Government funded the original research, operation of IANA, Jon Postel – Precedence Delegated Authority from USG Universal Acceptance Government Involvement through GAC Contractual Agreements between authority and delegee – Commercial Contract law Universal Representation from Stakeholders Hierarchy of authority – ICANN – SOs – Stakeholders Universal Suffrage of current Internet users?

Multilingual Name Space - I New Name Spaces extended from ASCII New Technology Originated from Asia Pacific 1998 Testbed pioneered in Asia 1998/1999 New Standards with Strong Asian Input in IETF processes 1999 New Complexities of Languages and Scripts

Multilingual Name Space - II New Scenarios of TLDs – language TLDs? ccTLDs and gTLDs in other scripts? New Names – IDNs and Keywords New User communities of non-English speaking users New authority/expertise framework nascent – MINC-INFITT-AINC-CDNC-JDNA-etc New Companies – I-DNS.net (1999) Neteka, Netpia, Realnames, Nativenames etc

ICANN ++ response IETF Internationalized Domain Name IDN Working Group end 1999/ 2000 IDN Committee 2001 Names Council/DNSO IDN WG 2001 Since 1998 to date.

Different Premises may necessitate Review of Authority Framework Is any change required of existing framework of authority? Can existing framework be extended to include the new multilingual namespace? Can the existing stakeholder base be extended to the new multilingual stakeholders? Can the gTLD/ccTLD ICANN authority structure work for the new multilingual multiscript IDN namespaces?

Authority Matrix in IDN LanguageScriptCountry/ Economy Example 111Hebrew, Greek 1M1Japanese 11MRussian, Mongolian M1MAscii, Han, Arabic 110Tamil 1MMKorean

Matrix of Language-Script-Country I ManyLanguages-OneScript-ManyCountries – - Latin script-ASCII; - Arabic/Farsi/Urdu/Jawi-Arabic->20countries; - Chinese/Japanese/Korean-Han- China/Japan/Koreas/Taiwan/HK/Macau/Singapore etc. OneLanguage-OneScript-OneCountry – Ancient Icelandic-Iceland; Hebrew-Israel Greek-Greece OneLanguage-ManyScripts-OneCountry – Japanese-Hiragana/Katakana/Kanji-Japan

Matrix of Language-Script-Country II OneLanguage-OneScript-ManyFonts-NoCountry – - Tamil-Tamil-TamilNadu State+>12countries with Tamil minorities; - American Indian languages; - Indian Languages such as Gujerati, Marathi, etc. OneLanguage-OneScript-SeveralCountries – - Mongolian-Mongolian-Mongolia/China; - Russian-Cyrillic-Russia/postSovietUnion states OneLanguage-SeveralScripts-SeveralCountries – - Korean-Hanguel/Hanja-NorthKorea/SouthKorea Other combinations

Current Status - I IDN Technologies available Strong IDN demand is proven IDN Service providers already present IETF IDN standards imminent

Current Status II Even more new technologies forthcoming – Growth area New Processes available – MINC, INFITT, AINC, JDNA, CDNC New businesses and new opportunities and new services in keywords and above-DNS services

Urgency Multilingual masses shut out of Internet because of linguistic limitation IDN Technology/Service Vendors moving forward with proprietary software – fracturing internet Alternative Root advocates getting stronger Application-Dependent/ Vendor Specific Solutions – Keywords- Realnames/Verisign/Microsoft; AOL keywords; Netscape keywords Country Authorities launching their own

MINC Multilingual Internet Names Consortium Coordination of IDN and Keywords Cooperation with relevant international organisations – ICANN, IETF, ISOC, ITU, WIPO, etc Creation of and fostering of ties with new organisations – AINC, CDNC, JDNA, INFITT, etc Formation in 2000

MINC WGs and Other Associated Organisations Chinese Domain Names Consortium – CDNC International Forum for IT in Tamil – INFITT Arabic Internet Names Consortium – AINC Japanese Domain Name Association – JDNA Urdu WG Russian WG Indian Lang WG Greek Langauge WG etc

MINC Proactive Ongoing Plan Work with all stakeholders and relevant organisations – ICANN, ISOC, ITU, WIPO etc Set up Interoperability Testbed for Technology testing Foster growth of new Stakeholder communities beyond AINC/INFITT/CDNC/JDNC etc for Self Determination process in their own languages Formulation of workable authority structures Formulation of Inter-language group coordination and dispute resolution Creation of level playing field for all levels

Policy and Coordination ICANN IDN Committee mid2001 ICANN Names Council IDN committee late2001 ITU-WIPO-MINC meeting on multilingual domain names – this conference late MINC-AINC MoU and meeting MINC-CDNC meeting MINC official support of JDNC MINC-INFITT MoU MINC fostering RussianWG, IndianLangWG, GreekWG, HebrewWG etc.

What Policy/Coordination needed going forward? Conservative Central-Control Approach Revolutionary Liberal Free-Market Approach Something in-between?

Conservative Central-Control Approach ICANN DNSO gTLDsccTLDs Verisign/NSI others Country NICs/Mngrs Registries Registrars IDN-TLDs ccSO??SO? Country NICs/ Mngr ?? Language TLDs ?? Unique Root With Single Authority

Revolutionary Liberal Free-Market Approach ICANN DNSO gTLDsccTLDs Verisign/NSI others Country NICs/Mngrs Registries Registrars IDN-TLDs ccSO??? Country NICs/ Mngr ?? Language TLDs ?? ?? ??…. ?? Non-Unique Root With Multiple Authorities Other TLDs Loose or No Coordination With colliding namespaces Other iTLDs

Something in Between? ICANN DNSO gTLDsccTLDs Verisign/NSI others Country NICs/Mngrs Registries Registrars IDN-TLDs ccSO??? Country NICs/ Mngr ?? Language TLDs ?? ?? ??…. ?? Unique Distributed Root With Coordinated Multiple Authorities Multi-Lateral Agreements /Coordination

Past Present Future of IDN Technically Impossible, but 1998 iDNS proxy Technically Unimplementable, but 1998 APNG Testbed No Commercial Interest, but 1998 I-DNS.net Inc No Demand, but 1999 Overwhelming response No Standard, but 1999 IETF IDN WG No Organisation, but 2000 MINC No Language Support, but 2000/1 CDNC, INFITT,AINC,JDNA No Authority, but ICANN IDN Committee, NC IDN WG No Fair, Equitable, Proactive, Responsive Authority Structure to address the complexity of languages

When can the non-English speaker start to use IDN? Define standards Demythologise the unique root Devolve authority and responsibility Deploy Coordination process Delimit and Delegate new IDN TLDs More work, mostly political work needed.

Please provide feedback to: Tan Tin Wee MINC Website: MINC MINC Mailing Lists