[AfrICANN-discuss] Land Grab? ccTLDs and multilingual names

[Sophia B]

By Milton Mueller
The introduction of internationalized domain names (IDNs) offers the
world one of the best opportunities it will ever have to introduce more
diversity and competition into the domain name registry market. ...
<http://blog.internetgovernance.org/blog/_archives/20

  "The introduction of internationalized domain names (IDNs) offers
> the world one of the best opportunities it will ever have to introduce
> more diversity and competition into the domain name registry market...
>  ....Unfortunately, the politics within ICANN are threatening that
> opportunity. There
> is a move afoot to give country code TLD registries a free gift of an IDN
> top level
> domain."
>
------------------------------------
Herein in this report is an analysis of the best layed out plan
on the future of IDNs.  If this is not stopped in due time, IDN
gtlds risk being controlled by ccTLDs.  IDN appears a complicated
issue from the surface, but after my two year experiance on the
gNSO council, I have learned that the issue is rather not technical.

As part of IDN WG, we have fought hard for this not to happen,
it is a great interest to me given that Amharic is one of the well
developed languages which has opportunities for IDN implementation.
But if you dig deep in this report, there is a risk of ALL DE FACTO
going to the ccTLDs, while the gTLDs are left out cold in  the marketplace
in pratcical terms. The article argues that it would be unfair distribution
of rights to incumbents, who in many cases have not necessarily
shown in the past that they are worthy recipients to ensure the best
interests of the public being served.

Food for thought!
Regards.
Sophia
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