Browser IDN display policy: opinions sought

[Eric Brunner-Williams]

On 12/14/11 5:24 AM, "Martin J. Dürst" wrote:
> 
> Points below taken. My assumption was mainly based on the fact that
> even if we get to a few thousand TLDs, these are not handed out
> automatically like second- and third-level domains. If they get
> announced in any way, then there's a possibility for current holders
> to complain. As an example, I couldn't imagine that Verisign would be
> happy with somebody trying to get .СОМ (the visual equivalent of .COM
> in Cyrillic).

The "confusingly similar" restriction anticipates this.

VGRS's plan of record (to the best of my knowledge) is to acquire many
equivalent strings in scripts other than Latin.

There are pre-existing equivalent strings in Han script in a namespace
with more users than the namespace in which VGRS currently holds
several nominally renewable franchises.

Mariners. Dragons. Etc.

...

> It wouldn't be too difficult to solve the issue with some negotiation:
> If .ec (Ecuador) agrees to never register Cyrillic domain names, and
> .ес (Cyrillic EU) agrees to never register domain names in Latin, and
> to not register any whole-script confusables in Cyrillic (and they
> make a deal of how to tread Greek), then things might just work out fine.

Country code registries might voluntarily agree to a registration
restriction policy.

For counter-examples, see NU re-purposed as "new" in extended Latin,
VGRS managed BZ re-purposed as "business" oddly coincidental with the
2000 round launch of a non-VGRS BIZ gTLD, and the recent NuStar
managed CO re-purposed as an SEO match-before COM.

For general failures of registration restriction policy see:
http://www.icann.org/en/general/litigation-employ-media.htm

There may be others already. There will be others.

Eric