Changing the values of domain names and the need for mapping

[Paul Hoffman]

At 8:02 AM +0100 2/20/09, Cary Karp wrote:
> > VeriSign has many domain names registered in .com that are encodings
>> of strings that use Esszet. To the best of my knowledge, no one from
>> VeriSign has said on this list or in any other forum that VeriSign is
>> prepared to deal with the very real effects (not "side-effects") of
>> current registrations under the IDNA2003 protocol (not "guidelines").
>> The same is true for PIR and .org. Further, the one registry that has
>> said it can deal with the effects of the Esszet change has not
>> definitively said how they will do so.
>
>This topic has been discussed at length by the gTLD registries in
>several forums. I partcipate in many of those discussions, as well as in
>the present one. Although I am not prepared to make any assertions on
>behalf of the gTLDs that you name, my sense is quite clearly that they
>all understand the consequences of the action we are proposing, and are
>prepared to undertake the resultant effort.

That's good to hear. The main question for this group is what those actions are. Some actions would cause lack of interoperability with current names, others would cause new requirements on current domain name owners, and others would be just fine. Without knowing what these registries plan, this WG cannot decide the stability effects of our decisions here.

>Devising specific
>implementation plans is a proprietary concern, and you cannot reasonably
>expect details to appear on this list.

Well, we can take this discussion to the DNSOP WG, but I think this list is certainly more appropriate. The operational affects of our decisions is indeed something we need to consider, so it is reasonable to expect details of operational plans to appear here.

>I agree that it would be useful for the gTLDs to chime into the
>discussion here, directly, but the fact that they have not done so
>hardly supports the assertion that they are opposed to a protocol
>change that will ultimately increase the base of useful (and therefore
>commercially interesting) domain names.

Fully agree; we simply don't know.