Re-sending TXT form of Proposed IDNA2008 Transition Idea

[Steve Crocker]

On Dec 14, 2009, at 6:09 PM, Warren Kumari wrote:

>
>
> Warren Kumari
> ------
> Please excuse typing, etc -- This was sent from a device with a tiny  
> keyboard.
>
> On Dec 14, 2009, at 3:44 PM, Steve Crocker <steve at shinkuro.com> wrote:
>
>> John,
>>
>> With the caveat that I haven't given this deep and lengthy thought  
>> and
>> I haven't discussed this with anyone else, the model and value
>> proposition I have in mind is the following.
>>
>> The variants represent a potential for new revenue if either the
>> existing registrant or a new registrant is willing to pay for it.  As
>> a marketing strategy, the registrar can choose to register the
>> variants for a period of time.  This would be a loss leader, but the
>> costs would be minimal if the registry and ICANN cooperated to waive
>> their fees.
>>
>> The technical detail would be for the registrar to send to the
>> registry the same set of records associated with the base name.  This
>> would be independent of whether the registrar were also the DNS
>> operator or web service provider for the registrant.
>>
>> The registrants would all be notified but wouldn't have to do
>> anything.  When the time period expires, the registrant could choose
>> to keep none, some or all of the variants.
>
> Um, to me this seems fraught with danger... Some registants will  
> register variant-A, but many of their users will think of them as  
> variant-B. After the timeout, many registrants won't realize how  
> many users have been reaching them as variant-B, variant-C, etc, and  
> they will choose not to renew them, and suddenly their users cannot  
> reach th anymore... Yes, the registrant *should* be able to figure  
> out how users think of them, but....

Is this worse than having the burden on the registrants right away?  I  
don't have any religious feelings about this.  I'm just looking at  
this in terms of the practical problem of communicating with and  
educating the zillions of registrants.  On the day the split takes  
place, if the variants are not registered, whomever has been using a  
variant to reach the registrant will suddenly find it's not working.   
She will then have to figure out that she needs to type ss instead of  
""B" -- apologies for the crude approximation of sharp-s -- in order  
to make things work.  Equally, the registrant will have to pay  
attention to the need to register some or all of his variants.

It's a trade off of when the pain comes and who suffers.  Vint  
suggested each registry could control the timing of when the change  
happens within its own registry.  In the same vein, I'm suggesting  
that some registries might choose to encourage prophylactic  
registration of variants.  I guess each registrar can choose whether  
to take advantage of it if the registry offers it.

Steve