<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>Begin forwarded message:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>From: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Glen de Saint Géry <<a href="mailto:Glen@icann.org">Glen@icann.org</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Date: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">August 25, 2012 2:33:41 AM PDT</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>To: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">liaison6c <<a href="mailto:liaison6c@gnso.icann.org">liaison6c@gnso.icann.org</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Subject: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><b>[liaison6c] IDN Variant TLD Program Update</b></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div class="WordSection1"><div style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin-top: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin-top: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><a href="https://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-23aug12-en.htm" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; ">https://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-23aug12-en.htm</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><h1 style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 24pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: bold; "><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">IDN Variant TLD Program Update<o:p></o:p></span></h1><div style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin-top: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span class="date-display-single"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">23 August 2012</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><o:p></o:p></span></div><p style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">The IDN Variant TLD Program has the following two updates:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -18pt; "><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><span>1.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman'; "> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></span><strong><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">Volunteer Team formed to assist the development of the Label Generation Ruleset Process for the Domain Name System (DNS) Root Zone</span></strong><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">ICANN is pleased to announce the formation of a global volunteer team, comprised of community experts, who will work with ICANN on the project to define the Label Generation Ruleset Process for the DNS root zone. This project is part of the IDN Variant TLD Program (see below) that is intended to lead to the delegation of IDN Variant TLDs. Delegation of these types of IDN TLDs is expected to broaden global participation in the domain name system, but must be accomplished in a way that ensures good user experience.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">This particular project will develop the process to define allowed code points, corresponding exchangeable variant code points, and related allowed states for IDN Variant TLDs.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">The project requires significant technical expertise and the individual members of the volunteer team (listed below) possess capabilities in IDNA, Domain Name System, Linguistics, Unicode and Policy Development.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">The volunteer team will undertake the work through periodic teleconference calls and two face-to-face meetings. The first meeting will be on 29-30 August 2012 in Los Angeles, United States. The second two-day working session is planned during the ICANN meeting in Toronto, Canada. There will be an open public session in the Toronto meeting at which ICANN staff and volunteer team representatives will present an update on the progress and answer questions.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">The volunteer team is comprised of the following members from 18 countries and territories:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">Fahd A. Batayneh<br>Chris Dillon<br>Neha Gupta<br>Sarmad Hussain<br>Akshat Joshi<br>Daniel Kalchev<br>Yoav Keren<br>Dmitry Kohmanyuk<br>Mahesh Kulkarni<br>Nadya Morozova<br>Panagiotis Papaspiliopoulos<br>Alireza Saleh<br>Vaggelis Segredakis<br>James Seng<br>Vladimir Shadrunov<br>Syed Iftikhar H. Shah<br>Will Shorter<br>Alexei Sozonov<br>Mirjana Tasic<br>Joseph Yee<br>Yoshiro Yoneya<br>Zhoucai (Joe) Zhang<br>Linlin Zhou<br>Team Observers:<br>Rinalia Abdul Rahim<br>Edmon Chung<br>Raymond Doctor<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -18pt; "><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><span>2.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman'; "> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></span><strong><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">Updated IDN Variant TLD Program posted</span></strong><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">ICANN has updated the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><a href="https://www.icann.org/en/resources/idn/idn-variant-tld-updated-plan-23aug12-en.pdf" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; "><span lang="EN-US">IDN Variant TLD Program Plan</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>[PDF, 576 KB] that describes the projects that are intended to lead to the delegation of IDN variant TLDs. The plan defines the processes that must be in place to enable the delegation and management of IDN Variant TLDs.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">Two previous versions of the plan have been posted for<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><a href="https://www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment/idn-variant-tld-revised-program-plan-04may12-en.htm" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; "><span lang="EN-US">public comment</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and discussed with the community during the ICANN meeting in Costa Rica in March 2012. This latest version reflects the latest public input.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">The Program follows on from the IDN Variant Issues Project that completed its work with the publication of the final<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><a href="https://www.icann.org/en/resources/idn/idn-vip-integrated-issues-final-clean-20feb12-en.pdf" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; "><span lang="EN-US">Integrated Issues Report</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>[PDF, 2.15 MB] on 20 February 2012.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">Interested members of the community can receive updates and participate in the discussion of the variant work by subscribing to the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><a href="mailto:vip@icann.org" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; "><span lang="EN-US">vip@icann.org</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>mailing list (</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><a href="https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/vip" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; "><span lang="EN-US">https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/vip</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">) or by visiting the Community Wiki at:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><a href="https://community.icann.org/display/VIP/" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; "><span lang="EN-US">https://community.icann.org/display/VIP/</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin-top: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin-top: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin-top: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">Glen de Saint Géry<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin-top: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">GNSO Secretariat<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin-top: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><a href="mailto:gnso.secretariat@gnso.icann.org" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; ">gnso.secretariat@gnso.icann.org</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin-top: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><a href="http://gnso.icann.org" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; ">http://gnso.icann.org</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin-top: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></div></div></span></blockquote></div><br><div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div>IP JUSTICE</div><div>Robin Gross, Executive Director</div><div>1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA 94117 USA</div><div>p: +1-415-553-6261 f: +1-415-462-6451</div><div>w: <a href="http://www.ipjustice.org">http://www.ipjustice.org</a> e: <a href="mailto:robin@ipjustice.org">robin@ipjustice.org</a></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"> </div><br></body></html>