These are important questions, but posing those questions requires, I think somewhat more debate. Why? I'll confess this is my washington policy sensibility clicking. This consticuency seeks to provide a voice for non-commercial organizations within the ICANN process, which includes on issues of registry opperation. It is a no brainer to ask how the non-commercial registrants, which this consticuency is designed to represent, will be protected. It is somewhat more challenging to send a letter inquirying about policy, because then the wording becomes very important and may require extensive debate. By contrast, a simple inquiry about the welfare of non-commercial registrants should be both simple to execute and relatively non-controversial. Harold Marc Schneiders wrote: >As a non-native speaker of English I may say things too strongly... In >any case, I would like the letter you suggest also to include a >request for clarification about why PIR is doing away with IDN names >in .ORG and why in such a secret way, both in March 2003, when >resolution suddenly stopped and now again, esp. since so far PIR has >promised to let these domains hibernate until some final encoding for >IDNs is approved. > >On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, at 10:16 [=GMT-0500], Harold Feld wrote: > >>It seems to me that perhaps it is appropriate for the executive >>committee of the consticuency to send a polite letter of inquiry from >>the consticuency to PIR asking if the notification is correct and, if >>so, what steps will be taken to inform and mitigate hardship to the >>non-commercial user who registered for these names in good faith. >> >>Harold Feld >> >>Marc Schneiders wrote: >> >>>Perhaps more than a footnote to the present discussion of "Approval >>>process for gtld service changes": PIR is going to delete all >>>multilingual domains (also called IDN) on February 2004. I learned >>>about this through the newsletter of a German registrar (quote below). >>> >>>I have protested earlier about the silent end to resolution (working >>>DNS) of these domains in March 2003. PIR was not very responsive, to >>>put it mildly. Now again there will be a secret change to these >>>domains. They will quietly disappear. I see no message about it on the >>>PIR website. >>> >>>I am of the opinion that this is unacceptable in several respects: >>> >>>1. Registrants are not notified. I have such a domain and I heard >>>nothing. >>> >>>2. It is done in a most intransparent, even secret manner. >>> >>>3. It is related to the redelegation of a TLD. Will the same thing >>>happen in 2005 with .NET? >>> >>>4. Multilingual domains were a private initiative of Verisign, not >>>approved by ICANN, but neither did ICANN tell Verisign not to do it. >>>In this context it is most relevant for the "approval process" topic. >>> >>>5. PIR kills .ORG multilinguals for technical reasons, it says (well >>>the German text below does). At the same time Afilias (which runs .ORG >>>technically) is introducing multilingual .INFO domains. Can anyone >>>explain this to me, please? >>> >>>>From newsletter of dd24.net: >>> >>>---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>PIR wird multilinguale .ORG Domains nun doch löschen >>>---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> >>>Nach einer anders lautenden Meldung im November hat uns das kürzlich >>>ernannte Zentralregister für .ORG Domains, Public Interest Registry >>>(PIR), >>>jetzt darüber informiert, dass die Registrierungen der nach dem >>>ehemaligen >>>"RACE-Verfahren" eingetragenen multilingualen .ORG Domains (also >>>Domains mit >>>Umlauten bzw. Sonderzeichen) doch nicht länger kostenlos verlängert >>>werden. >>>Stattdessen hat sich PIR für eine Löschung aller multilingualen .ORG >>>Domains >>>zum 1. Februar 2004 entschieden. >>> >>>Gründe für diese Entscheidung sind insbesondere die technischen >>>Schwierigkeiten und Unsicherheiten der zukünftigen Umwandlung der >>>bereits >>>registrierten Domains in das neue "Punycode-Verfahren". >>> >>>Nun muss zunächst einmal geklärt werden, auf welche Weise eine >>>Neueinführung >>>multilingualer .ORG Domains gemäß des allgemeinen Standarts zukünftig >>>überhaupt durchgeführt werden soll. Wir sind gespannt... >>> >>>Quelle: PIR >>> >>> >> > > >