IDN.mobi has now been launched in China. 1.3 Billion people reside in China offering a great opportunity for .mobi as a domain to gain more traction with the world’s most populated country.

Dot Mobi have informed ‘OKOK’ that this was just a formal signing with CATR – the China Academy of Telecommunication Research.

(An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that contains one or more non-ASCII characters.)

Already standard english words have been registered in China along with another 107 countries worldwide, in terms of the userbase for dot mobi domains.When idn.mobi goes LIVE in the coming weeks it will be interesting to view takeup, adoption and registration patterns.

Also different promotions by registrars, companies, mtld and Chinese authorities and commissions.

_____________________________________________________________

Trey Harvin (CEO of Dot Mobi/MTLD) and Zou Lixing (ASSISTANT DEAN from China academy of telecommunication research of MIIT)
MIIT: MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

_____________________________________________________________

The ticker tape flies as Trey Harvin and other dignatories from MITT and other Government agencies associated with the internet celebrate in great style the IDN.mobi  press conference and agreement signing!

As the sign above their heads say, “Opening  the new era of Chinese addressing over the mobile internet.”

_____________________________________________________________

On the 18th June 2009 the with Ministry of CATR industry and information department & the global top-level domain (. Mobi) management companies signed a strategic cooperation agreement. In accordance with the agreement, in the future, both sides will be able to receive  applications from business users for the world’s Chinese. Mobi. (Chinese IDN)

In fact, on June 19 last year, the Ministry of CATR  industry and information section, with the dotMobi company, signed a memorandum of cooperation. They made joint efforts to promote mobile Internet development in China. Today coincides with the first anniversary of the agreement betwwen the two sides. This launch for the Chinese name and address information utilizing the idn.mobi domain name is through joint co-operation with .Mobi and the Chinese authorities.

Registrations will be available for the new IDN.mobi format mobile domains sometime over this summer (2009). We will of course keep you updated and give you the official date for the launch and if any premiums will be held back.

source: http://okok.com

The introduction of Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) represents one of the most significant advancements in the history of the internet. A majority of internet users today have a first language other than English and many languages utilise characters not currently available within the DNS. IDNs provide these users with the capability to navigate the internet using their native language scripts.

Adrian Kinderis, CEO of AusRegistry International said, “I’m delighted that the AusRegistry International team have successfully implemented full IDN capability into our existing systems. There is an amazing amount of complexity involved in this project and our team have come up with innovative solutions without sacrificing the excellent performance standards that our systems have achieved over many years.”

With dozens of scripts and hundreds of languages in use worldwide, there has been lengthy debate amongst global subject matter experts striving to create standard protocols that cater for this global linguistic diversity. The development and management of an IDN-enabled Domain Registry System therefore poses some of the most complex technical, linguistic and policy-related challenges to Top Level Domain (TLD) Regulators and Registry operators.

AusRegistry International has overcome these challenges and recently became one of the first organisations globally to complete the implementation of an IDN-enabled Registry System, based on the IDNA2008 draft standard. This implementation enables AusRegistry International to provide an industry-leading solution that allows high levels of configurability to address linguistic complexities, while maintaining the existing functionality, ease of management and high system performance standards currently utilised by AusRegistry International and their clients around the world.

Adrian Kinderis also stated that, “we see IDNs as one of the most important additions to the internet in its short history and we are proud to be the global leaders in developing our technologically superior Registry Software for use by non-English speakers around the world. This achievement further enhances AusRegistry International’s reputation as a leader within the global Domain Name Registry Services marketplace.”

ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is implementing a Fast Track process to allow existing country-code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) managers to create IDN versions of their ccTLD, using local language scripts. ICANN is also expected to begin approving new IDN-based generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) in 2010. With full IDN capability now available in its Domain Name Registry System, AusRegistry International is now well-positioned to service both emerging market segments.

About AusRegistry

AusRegistry International is a wholly owned subsidiary of AusRegistry Pty Ltd, the current Registry Operator for the .au ccTLD. The organisation was formed to leverage AusRegistry’s DNS expertise and infrastructure and to provide the platform for the innovative usage of this technology in the provision of ‘World’s Best Practice’ Domain Name Registry Services globally.

AusRegistry International has most recently deployed their Registry software in the United Arab Emirates for the .ae ccTLD and has a proven and credible track record in providing a wide range of technical and advisory services for the full spectrum of TLD Regulators and Registry Operators.

Media Contact:

Axia Jarnblad
Marketing Assistant
AusRegistry International Pty Ltd
Ph: +61 3 9866 3710
Fax: +61 3 9866 1970
Email: axia.jarnblad@ausregistry.com.au
Web: www.ausregistry.com

With the IDN work for Internationalized Domain Names using characters beyond ASCII, it is only natural to tackle the problem of Internationalized Internet eMail.

Some smart people have been working on an IETF working group to figure out how non-ASCII email would work, and I encourage people to take a look: http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/eai-charter.html.  That page has the charter, a list of drafts and RFCs that have already been produced, and links to the IMA working group mailing list.

Assuming you’re an ASCII/Latin character user, imagine having to type all your URL’s in Chinese, or Cyrillic (or if you know those, imagine typing everything in Klingon, eg:  )  In many cultures, that’s what it’s like to use the web.  Some users may not be literate in Latin letters, or may have to do a lot of hunt-n-pecking.  EAI should help address that problem.

How EAI/IMA Works

The basic idea of the EAI working group is to stick email in UTF-8 instead of ASCII.  UTF-8 works pretty well in many systems, and many mailers already handle 8 bit encodings, so this is a pretty “simple” solution.  Unfortunately email touches a lot of places, so there’re a lot of protocols that need updates (eg: STMP, POP, mailto:, etc.)  Additionally everyone knows that UTF-8 email can’t happen instantly, so there needs to be a system for existing servers to talk to UTF-8 aware ones, which leads to a few more RFCs.

UTF8SMTP allows the servers to make decisions about the “local” part of the email address, which allows for groups to fit their own needs.  The backwards compatibility means that users also need ASCII addresses, as they do today.  The server would alias from one address to another so mail to @microsoft.com could map to my normal mailbox, and I’d only have one mail.  Unfortunately that simple concept means that places that didn’t have to worry about aliasing before may now have to consider aliases and fallback addresses.  Contact lists may need to have both forms, etc.

Current Status of EAI/IMA

Currently there are several experimental RFCs, and several people have created interoperating systems that work with each other to demonstrate the feasibility of UTF8SMTP.   The next step is to move towards a standards track process, which could happen “reasonably quickly”.  I’m optimistic that the standards will move quickly, but sometimes these things take a while.

So Who’s Gonna Use It?

There are a lot of markets where ASCII doesn’t work very well for various reasons.  Even when people have ASCII aliases, it may seem artificial, and there may be a desire for an email that reflects them or their country.  There are many ISPs in countries like Korea, China, & Japan that are very eager to be able to send email in a native script.  Some governments like Russia and China are weighing in on the importance of being able to send mail and use the Internet in their script.

What’s IMA Mean To Me As a Software Developer? (who cares?)

If you are a developer, then you may run into IMA addresses.  Even if your app doesn’t explicitly deal with mail, there may be a place for email to sneak into your app.  For example, IDN and domain names don’t really have much to do with Word or PowerPoint, yet they often show up in documents and presentations.  I could imagine an author address in metadata, such as a photographer contact in a photo’s metadata.  Many apps probably will run into IMA addresses whether they realize it or not.

Anyway, I have been thinking about this space for a while and thought I’d share my observations.  It’s worth considering what impact IMA will have on your application (while you’re at it, how’s IDN behave?)

-Shawn

source: http://blogs.msdn.com/shawnste/default.aspx

31 May 2009

Updated 4 June 2009

One more paper is being included in the Fast Track Implementation package, Cost Analysis of IDN ccTLDs: Focus on Program Development and Processing Costs [PDF, 148K]. This paper provides cost analyses of the IDN ccTLDs including the costs to process a request for a new IDN ccTLD as well as the development costs associated with IDN policy and the Fast Track process. Ongoing support costs for TLDs are covered in the EAG paper published last week.

ICANN is pleased to announce the public posting of the revised Draft Implementation Plan for the IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process.

A public comment forum opens today and closes on 15 July 2009. ICANN is particularly interested in feedback on a number of proposed implementation features in the Fast Track Process. Separate papers on these topics are being made available (see links to this announcement).

The Fast Track Process is a mechanism to introduce a limited number of non-contentious internationalized country-code top level domain names (IDN ccTLDs).

The initial version and two subsequent revisions of the implementation of the Fast Track Process were discussed at several meetings and online. That community input resolved a number of issues.

As a result of the progress on the implementation effort, at the recent ICANN meeting in Mexico, Mexico City, the Board passed several resolutions:

It is resolved (2009.03.06.03), that the Board thanks the ICANN community for its work to date and encourages it to continue its work so that the implementation plan can be finalized and considered by the Board no later than at its annual meeting in 2009.

It is resolved (2009.03.06.04), that the Board directs staff to work towards completion of the Implementation Plan for the IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process by, among other tasks, continuing consultation on the Documentation of Responsibility, including a specification for adherence to the IDN Guidelines and IDN technical standards such as the IDNA protocol.

It is resolved (2009.03.06.05), that the Board directs staff to rapidly provide the community with financial information on ICANN costs attributable to ccTLDs, including the costs associated with IDN ccTLDs, that will inform the creation of a financial model for cost contributions to the launch and continued management of the IDN ccTLDs.

The revision of the Draft Implementation Plan is being released in an effort to meet the goal set out in the ICANN Board resolution aimed at eliciting further community feedback both during and after the ICANN meeting in Sydney, Australia, June 21-26, 2009.

In further response to the ICANN Board resolution, consultation papers are made available on the three remaining topics: Documentation of Responsibility, Fee and Cost Considerations, and the IDN Tables and Variant Management.

There are separate papers describing proposed implementation details (listed below). The papers are based on comments and input received from the community, notably from meetings held at ICANN’s international public meeting in Mexico City in March 2009.

The public comment period that opens today covers both the Draft Implementation Plan and the papers. Comments received will be used to revise this implementation plan in preparation of a final version prior to ICANN’s meeting in Seoul, 26-30 October 2009. This comment period ends on 15 July 2009.

Please note that the papers listed below are proposed discussion drafts only. Potential IDN ccTLD requestors should not rely on any of the proposed details as they remain subject to further consultation and revision.

Please also note that it is expected there will be several updates to this announcement, as papers are released, finalized and translated. Continue reading ‘ICANN: Fast Track Implementation (3rd Revision)’ »

4 June 2009 10:00 AM Eastern

40 IDN’s sells as package for 8000 EUR on Rick Latona Auctions. Sale include russian asia.com, lottery.com russia.net, music.net; arabic oil.com, egypt.net; hebrew business.com, search.com

full list:

Bulgarian residents will be able to register domain names in Cyrillic by the end of the year, the country’s foreign minister vowed.

The goal was described by Foreign Minister Ivaylo Kalfin as part of the state policy, even though the press conference he gave was part of his electioneering as Socialists’ top candidate for the European Parliament.

Minister Kalfin explained that Bulgaria has submitted an application for registering domain names in Cyrillic a day before Russia.

“Bulgaria will be visited by the world’s top experts in this field on May 26. The Russians are also working very hard as well,” the minister pointed out.

The minister spoke on May 24 when Bulgaria celebrates the day of the Bulgarian Education and Culture and Slav Letters and pays tribute to the deed of Sts Cyril and Methodius, the creators of the Cyrillic alphabet.

source: http://www.novinite.com

NameDrive are delighted to announce the launch of NDX Market, a fully-integrated domain trading platform, and a full relaunch of our domain parking front office.

Building on several years’ experience of brokering private domain sales totaling several million dollars, NameDrive now gives all of our clients the opportunity to buy and sell domains on a vibrant, innovative, international trading platform: NDX Market.

Domain owners can list domains as best offer or auctions, both with the added option of setting a BuyNow price – offering the chance to set up your own fixed price domain store.

Domain investors can take advantage of Park&Sell listings which show domains’ parking earnings for the last 30 days on NameDrive, giving you the opportunity to invest in domains which are proven to make real cash.

In addition to launching a comprehensive aftermarket, NameDrive has also fully revamped the homepage and parking front office.
Since August 2005, NameDrive has been renowned for innovation in domain management and parking options. NameDrive were the first company to provide folder management for domains, next generation parking templates, full IDN functionality, global optimization preview, individual letter capitalization and more.

The new Front Office takes this innovation to the next level with full per-country statistical breakdown and settings, dynamic navigation, advanced analytical tools, on-the-fly optimization, virtual folders and customizable log in screens among several new features.

Make sure you drop by NameDrive.com soon to check out the new features, list your domains on the aftermarket and look into expanding your domain portfolio on NDX Market.

You can find video tutorials and tours on our new Video Tutorial Lounge here.

We hope you enjoy using the new system as much as we enjoyed building. We’d obviously love to hear any and all feedback. We will continue to make changes and updates over the next couple of weeks, so this is just the beginning.

Contributing to the Standardization Activity of the E-mail Address Internationalization

On 31 March 2009, an RFC which specifies a standard for E-mail Address Internationalization (EAI) and was co-authored by two (2) engineers of JPRS was published. This means that EAI is prepared for the field tests toward the actual utilization.

An e-mail address is described in the form of “user-name@domain-name”. In terms of standardization of “domain name” which is on the right part to @, a standard is already defined as Internationalized Domain Name (IDN). EAI is the technology which internationalizes the whole e-mail address including the left part to @, i.e., “local part”; also, it is the technology whereby non-ASCII characters of various languages including Japanese can be used in any part of an e-mail address.

Internationalization of e-mail address is one of the significant technical developments to break down barriers to the use of the Internet; thus, it is beneficial for those whose mother tongue is not English. E-mail is one of the fundamental services of the Internet. Therefore, we need to internationalize e-mail through retaining the compatibility with the current system, while making them interface with the future extensions.

With this publication, the fundamental standards to keep the backward compatibility and extend the respective protocols which set up the e-mail system are compiled in four (4) RFCs (RFC 5335, RFC 5336, RFC 5337 and RFC 5504) as experimental standards. RFC 5504 specifically defines a standard for the backword compatibility with the existing e-mail system in case the internationalized e-mail address is used. RFC 5504 is co-authored by Mr. Kazunori Fujiwara and Mr.Yoshiro Yoneya from JPRS.

Now that these RFCs are published, all the fundamental RFCs required to handle the internationalized e-mail address are in place, so the development of experimental implementation and the field test on the Internet toward the actual utilization are now available. From now on, implementation to e-mail softwares and the review toward the preparation of a variety of RFCs which become standard track are going to be proceeded through the field tests and other related activities.
References:

• RFC 5504
  (Downgrading mechanism for Email Address Internationalization. K. Fujiwara, Ed., Y. Yoneya Ed.. March 2009.)
  http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc5504.txt
• RFC 5335
  (Internationalized Email Headers. Y. Abel, Ed.. September 2008.)
  http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc5335.txt
• RFC 5336 (SMTP Extension for Internationalized Email Addresses. J. Yao, Ed., W. Mao, Ed.. September 2008.)
  http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc5336.txt
• RFC 5337
  (Internationalized Delivery Status and Disposition Notifications. C. Newman, A. Melnikov, Ed.. September 2008.)
  http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc5337.txt

6 April 2009

source: http://jprs.co.jp/en/topics/090406.html

Ay dios mio! I think it’s awesome Sedo is doing a Spanish only domain auction. I got into domaining in early 2004, aka ‘real late’. The first thing I noticed was English .com’s were just plain GONE. Anything I tried was taken, if I was going to make any money in this business I was going to have to focus on something other than the English .com route. So the very first thing that caught my eye was IDN’s, particularly Spanish IDN’s.

The Overture tool was still around and I was finding domain after domain with “ñ” available to register! With huge scores ‘with extension’! The general opinion of IDN’s at the time was not good, they confused people, they thought they were gimmicky, etc. And 5 years later alot of folks still think that way, but some of the big guys have caught on. Well after I regged a few and saw the traffic, I didn’t care about what the geniuses on the domain forums thought about them, I had found my first niche! For the first time I was making PPC revenue with my domains, and my category killer was diseño.com ‘design.com’ in Spanish. This domain was getting constant traffic and .60 clicks. It was making $5 – $10 a day some days and I was hooked.

In 2004 I was also basically broke and when I got a good offer on the domain through Sedo. Part of me wondered if IDN’s would ever have end users or just be designated to lives of reaping PPC, so considering I was a broke newbie, I jumped at the chance to sell it for 4 figures. This money bought my my first laptop and a whole lot more  IDN domains.

And .ES! Such a fantastic extension. I was so glad to be a domainer in time for that launch. I got some good stuff and owe the fact I’m able to live off my domain income completely to Spanish domains, COM and ES.

Now it’s 2009. In 2008 I sold 7 Spanish IDN’s, most through Sedo and reported at a total of almost $20k. Some of them were sold too cheaply maybe, but I sold them to help the cause, test the market, knowing that I still had a whole lot more IDN’s stored away.

I submitted some pretty decent generic TRAFFIC IDN’s for consideration into the Sedo auction, one of them in .ES. If they ever have a Spanish Adult auction, I’ve got some high traffic beauties I could put up. I’m hoping mine or at least someone elses awesome IDN’s get accepted into the Sedo auction, the exposure would be great for everyone with IDN’s in any language. I’m gonna go reg some now, PranaDot out!

source: http://pranadot.wordpress.com

21 April 2009

The ongoing GNSO Improvements process has created significant community interest in the formation of new GNSO constituencies and several groups have stepped forward to begin the process of forming a new GNSO constituency. The ICANN Board has now received a third formal petition – from the prospective IDNgTLD Constituency. All members of the ICANN community and the public are now invited to review the petition and charter of the Consumers Constituency and share comments with the Board through 20 May 2009.

Background and Explanation:

In June 2008, the Board of Directors endorsed a series of recommendations on how to improve the GNSO’s structures and operations. One of the significant drivers of those recommendations was an interest in maximizing participation in the GNSO and its policy development processes. Among the various recommendations endorsed by the Board was that ICANN take steps to clarify and promote the option to self-form new constituencies.

The current ICANN Bylaws provide that any group of individuals or entities may petition the Board for recognition as a new or separate constituency, in accordance with Section 5(4) of Article X. Such a petition must explain (1) why “the addition of such a Constituency will improve the ability of the GNSO to carry out its policy-development responsibilities” and (2) why “the proposed new Constituency would adequately represent, on a global basis, the stakeholders it seeks to represent.” Despite those Bylaw provisions, it has been many years since the organization has had formal requests for a new constituency. Since the Board action last June, however, the ICANN Staff has received inquiries from several interested parties about how to form a new GNSO constituency and th e first took place only a little over five weeks ago when the proposed new CyberSafety Constituency submitted its formal petition and Charter documents. The proposed Consumers Constituency subsequently submitted its formal petition and charter on 10 April 2009.

The ICANN bylaws do not provide specific procedural guidance for how interested parties should submit the petitions contemplated in Article X. Mindful that explicit steps, formats, and/or processes for expansion would take some time for the community to develop in the implementation of the improvements recommendations, the Board directed ICANN Staff to provide the community with some initial guidance, a structure and a specific procedural path for potential new constituencies to follow. At its 1 October meeting, the Board acknowledged Staff’s development of a “Notice of Intent” document for potential new constituencies and directed Staff to develop a formal petition and charter template to assist new constituency applicants in satisfying the formative criteria (consistent with the ICANN Bylaws) to facilitate the Board’s evaluation of petitions to form new constituencies.

The process subsequently developed by the Staff required interested groups to first submit a Notice of Intent to Form a New Constituency (NOIF). The proponent of the IDNgTLD Constituency completed that first step on 10 April 2009. The second step of the process is development of a New Constituency Petition and Charter. The proponent of the IDNgTLD Constituency completed that effort on 18 April 2009.

Relevant Board Resolution, Bylaws and Constituency Submissions:

• Minutes of 1 October 2008 ICANN Board Meeting: http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/minutes-01oct08.htm

• ICANN Bylaws Article X, Section 5, Subsection 4: http://www.icann.org/en/general/bylaws.htm – X-5.1

• Copies of the IDNgTLD Constituency Petition Documents: http://gnso.icann.org/en/improvements/newco-process-en.htm and/or in the Public Comment Forum of this proceeding

The Process From Here:

At the end of this Public Comment Forum period, the ICANN Staff will provide a summary/analysis of the comments submitted regarding the IDNgTLD Constituency petition and charter. That summary/analysis will be shared with the community and the Board. The Board will ultimately make the decision on whether to authorize the new constituency.

It should be noted that the GNSO Improvements Report approved by the Board in June 2008 has additional guidelines and recommendations for the ongoing practices and processes of GNSO constituencies. It is expected that this work will be ongoing as part of the GNSO Improvements implementation efforts.

Deadline and How to Submit Comments:

The Staff is opening a 30-day public consultation forum, from 21 April 2009 through 20 May 2009, and invites community comments on this matter.

The formal Public Comment Forum Box is located here: http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/public-comment-200905.html#idngtld

To submit comments: idngtld-petition@icann.org

To view comments (including the various constituency submissions): http://forum.icann.org/lists/idngtld-petition

Staff Responsible: Robert Hoggarth