1. Cyrillic scripts in IDN
Specifics and recommendations issued by .RU IDN working group
Maria Stepanova
Kira Litvina
GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

2. Who uses Cyrillic scripts
Widely used in
Russia
Ukraine
Byelorussia
Bulgaria
Others
Used also in many countries of former USSR, Macedonia, Mongolia, etc.
GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

3. Cyrillic IDN under TLDs
ccTLDs
.ru, .bg, .ua, .by, .kz, .mk, etc.
.pl has just announced Cyrillic IDN deployment
.nu
(.il?, .ca?, .us?...)
gTLDs
Deployed by Verisign under .com, .net in November 2003
~7000 Cyrillic IDN registered by now
Plans for deployment under .info
Other gTLDs
GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

4. IDN registration policy
Restricting domains to characters of local language(s) only
.jp, .kr (one language)
foreseen under .ru
.no (local official languages)
.lu (nominated languages)
Restricting domains to code pages
.de, .at, .ch introducing IDN on April 1st
No restrictions
.nu
GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

5. full chart can be found at http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0400.pdf
Extract from Unicode cyrillic chart Cyrillic IDN under .ru will be restricted to 33 letters of Russian alphabet
full chart can be found at
GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

6. GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3
Main concerns
Overlapping of Cyrillic & Latin characters
Keyboard switching
Other concerns: limitations on IDN usage
GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

7. GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3
Overlapping
8 of 33 Cyrillic characters fully coincide with Latin characters in lower case:
а, c, е, к, м, о, р, х, у
12 of 33 characters fully coincide with Latin characters in upper case:
A, B, C, E, H, K, M, O, P, T, X, У
Some characters look similar in some fonts:
и and u; п and n
GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

8. GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3
Recommendation
To avoid user confusion and possible speculations
.RU IDN working group recommends
Not to mix Cyrillic and Latin characters in IDN
Clearly identify that domain name is Cyrillic
coca.ru visually can not be identified as IDN
GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

9. Cyrillic IDN identification
could be solution of the problem, but the ending .ру (transliterated .ru) is not good as it coincides with ссTLD of Paraguay
GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

10. GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3
Solution recommended
Use specific ending with unique Cyrillic character
for example, .рф
coca.рф can be visually identified as Cyrillic
GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

11. GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3
Main concerns
Overlapping of Cyrillic & Latin characters
Keyboard switching
Other concerns: limitations on IDN usage
GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

12. both Latin and Cyrillic keyboards are widely used in Russia
Keyboard switching
both Latin and Cyrillic keyboards
are widely used in Russia
GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

13. GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3
2 keyboards, solution
To enter
one needs to switch keyboard twice, which is inconvenient
Developers of plug-ins should address the problem and envisage possibility to enter full Cyrillic IDN with recommended ending
for example, ввв.<cyrillic_name>.рф, which seems to look like software used in .jp and .kr
GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

14. GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3
Other concerns
Limited usage
plug-ins to be downloaded
MUA do not support IDN
Less than 10% of registered IDN are delegated
GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

15. GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3
Conclusions
Implementation of Cyrillic IDN is of interest to Russian Internet community
Implementation should meet recommendations of .RU IDN wg
Further investigation is recommended by IDN wg in consultation with lawyers as of launch strategy
GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

16. GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3
Launch strategy
First come first served basis or
Sunrise period prior to the open registration
- For trademark owners
- For registrants of ASCII-equivalent domains
GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

17. GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3
Questions?
Useful links
Contact info:
GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3