PIR Letter to ICANN President re: IDNs

[Milton Mueller]

NCUC members: 
Ed Viltz's letter referred to an attached letter
to Paul Twomey. Here is that letter.
I chose to forward it as an email rather than Word 
attachment. I haven't read it yet, so have no opinion.
Just acting as a postal clerk for the moment.
--MM

===== 

Dr. Paul Twomey,

President & CEO

ICANN

4676 Admiralty Way

Suite 330

Marina del Rey, CA 90292 


January 14, 2004 
 


Dear Dr. Twomey,  
 


The guiding principles of the Public Interest Registry are to serve the public interest and to be an exemplary registry. As such, PIR has continually solicited feedback from our customers in order to tailor services and processes to best serve the .ORG community.   


This feedback has been especially helpful to us in determining how to manage the 149,939 IDN names that were re-delegated from VeriSign in January 2003.  Since then, PIR has maintained these non-standard names at no charge while we developed a plan that was both standards-compliant and in the public interest. 


On 23 December 2003, PIR announced to registrars that PIR would take certain steps to remove the legacy RACE encoded IDN domains (originally called Multi-Lingual Names – MLNs) from the .ORG database.  PIR has been pleased to receive feedback with recommended alternatives to the initial announcement.  PIR has carefully considered the recommendations, and has now decided to continue maintaining these names until we are able to launch script releases that will activate them.  Our plan includes the following steps regarding the legacy .ORG IDN names: 


1 – All legacy IDN domains will be unlocked by the registry by 28 January 2004 except that  auto-renews and explicit renews will not be allowed.  Once the domains are unlocked, registrars will have until 2 July 2004 to update the domain registration records to include the required thick data.  During this period, domains will remain on Registry Hold and will not be published to the .ORG zone files. These IDNs will remain available via WHOIS. 


2 – Transfers of IDNs will be allowed until 20 June 2004.  


3 – On 3 July 2004, ALL IDNs will be again placed on full Registry Lock. 


4 – PIR will convert all legacy RACE encoded IDNs to their Punycode equivalent.  Those IDNs that cannot be easily converted will be noted for follow-up with registrars. 
 


5 – At the time that PIR releases language scripts for IDNs, we anticipate there will be a 90 day period during which registrars will be asked to indicate which legacy IDNs in that script are to be kept by their customers.  Normal domain charges will be applied at that time, and thick data will be required to effect the “renewal.” 
 


Please note that PIR will attempt to ensure that the conversion of RACE encoded legacy IDNs to Punycode results in an equivalent underlying character set, but it is the responsibility of the registrar to determine that the conversion is accurate. Also, PIR intends to continue with the policy of not charging fees for the legacy IDN registrations until such time that PIR releases a language script and has given registrars time to contact their customers and to inform PIR that the domain should remain in the .ORG database. In addition, PIR reserves the right to terminate any legacy IDN domains where language script releases are not in effect by 31 December 2006. PIR will continue to keep legacy IDNs out of the zone file. 


We thank the international community for the feedback as we continue our commitment to customer satisfaction and to serving the public interest.  
 


Edward G. Viltz

President and CEO

Public Interest Registry 
 


cc ICANN Board of Directors 

    Tina Dam, Chief gTLD Registry Liaison 

    Dan E. Halloran, Chieft Registrar Liaison and Acting Secretary