IDN Variant TLD Program Update

IDN Variant TLD Program Update:

23 August 2012

The IDN Variant TLD Program has the following two updates:

1. 
   Volunteer Team formed to assist the development of the Label Generation Ruleset Process for the Domain Name System (DNS) Root Zone
   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.
   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.
   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.
   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.
   The volunteer team is comprised of the following members from 18 countries and territories:
   Fahd A. Batayneh
   
   Chris Dillon
   
   Neha Gupta
   
   Sarmad Hussain
   
   Akshat Joshi
   
   Daniel Kalchev
   
   Yoav Keren
   
   Dmitry Kohmanyuk
   
   Mahesh Kulkarni
   
   Nadya Morozova
   
   Panagiotis Papaspiliopoulos
   
   Alireza Saleh
   
   Vaggelis Segredakis
   
   James Seng
   
   Vladimir Shadrunov
   
   Syed Iftikhar H.  Shah
   
   Will Shorter
   
   Alexei Sozonov
   
   Mirjana Tasic
   
   Joseph Yee
   
   Yoshiro Yoneya
   
   Zhoucai (Joe) Zhang
   
   Linlin Zhou
   
   Team Observers:
   
   Rinalia Abdul Rahim
   
   Edmon Chung
   
   Raymond Doctor
   


2. 
   Updated IDN Variant TLD Program posted
   ICANN has updated the IDN Variant TLD Program Plan [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.
   Two previous versions of the plan have been posted for public comment and discussed with the community during the ICANN meeting in Costa Rica in March 2012. This latest version reflects the latest public input.
   The Program follows on from the IDN Variant Issues Project that completed its work with the publication of the final Integrated Issues Report [PDF, 2.15 MB] on 20 February 2012.
   Interested members of the community can receive updates and participate in the discussion of the variant work by subscribing to the vip@icann.org mailing list (https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/vip) or by visiting the Community Wiki at: https://community.icann.org/display/VIP/
   

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