Wall Street Journal - "Web Alphabet Set To Change."

[DomainsInc]

Although the boat left the jetty some time ago I am still amazed, and thankful, that the majority of the domaining community still have not even found the jetty.

If you can speak the language you have a huuuge advantage. Most english domainers, even if they catch on will end up regging things that mean nothing, much like foreign domainers with english domains.

[j8jweb]

OK, I just twigged... they're not talking about releasing new domain names at all. They're simply talking about allowing people to use non-roman character sets to type .دوت instead of typing .com, .cn, .whatever.

So no new domain names will become available for registration, so owners of existing IDN.com domains don't need to worry about anything. Nothing changes. They just might end up getting more traffic.

[Wot]

If you can speak the language you have a huuuge advantage. Most english domainers, even if they catch on will end up regging things that mean nothing, much like foreign domainers with english domains.

Or they could have put in the time and effort that most of the non native IDN'ers did to learn what was necessary to register the right names.

[Gerry]

My wife heard IDN discussed on NPR.org this morning and actually knew what they were talking about.

[DomainsInc]

Or they could have put in the time and effort that most of the non native IDN'ers did to learn what was necessary to register the right names.

True but you need to put a lot more work into it than just entering words into an online translator. Thats where so many make mistakes.

[Wot]

True but you need to put a lot more work into it than just entering words into an online translator. Thats where so many make mistakes.

Fact- I did not say it was easy, that's why the aforementioned "time and effort" is necessary.

[dominator]

Also CNN News:
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/BUSINESS...ain/index.html

"news" from November 11, 2007?

[steveatvillas]

Hi folks:

I'm still a bit confused. Does this mean that instead of, say, ".com" or ".net" or ".org" we are going to have the phonetic equivalents in each non-roman language?

Or are each of the countries going to establish their own registries for "Commercial", "Networks" and "Organizations"?

Or, will this be combined with already existing punycode IDNs for the second level domain?

The reason I ask is that I did attempt to register the language/equivalent IDN for a name in Japanese in the .JP ccTLD. Unfortunately, there was no single literal equivalent for the English key term (a very common key term that we all use in English every day); but instead no less than three different ways of expressing the cultural and social meaning — depending on the age of the speaker, the immediate situation of the speaker and to whom one is speaking, the geographical dialect, etc.

So, what exactly is gonna happen?

Thanks,

Steve

[Fearless]

If domainers are confused, do you think Joe Arab will be confused?

[PokerPie]

This made the front page of the International Herald Tribune today - for those who aren't familiar its a New York Times newspaper and the english language newspaper with the largest distribution in non-english speaking countries - the only one available in many of them.

[steveatvillas]

If domainers are confused, do you think Joe Arab will be confused?

You got it, man.

I watched a clip yesterday on CNN, and they had some domain/IP lawyer "expert" and he did not give me a very good feeling with his explanation...mostly because he didn't really say anything concrete.

This clip was definitely for non-domainers, under the guise of "the domain world is 'opening up' with lots of new opportunities to get the name you want."...what he didn't say is, "But, it's gonna be in Farsi."

What Mr. Expert did say, which has me concerned as a brander and TM holder, is: Jesus H., how many MORE names am I gonna have to reg to protect my IP? When does this BS end?

[PokerPie]

The IHT article was pretty well informed. It had multiple people from ICANN and other domain institutions quoted. It was obvious to me after reading it that this is just another money-grab for ICANN. One of the domain companies even said as much, saying this was going to create a lot of new business for his company as companies all over the world will buy up domains in every language to protect their brands.

It is my understand that this is how much of the money is made with every new tld and cctld that is added. They charge big prices in the early-bird phases to companies with existing trademarks so nobody else gets their hands on yourbusiness.asia and yourbusiness.mobi etc. Now they are going to try and get them all to buy yourbusiness.whatever in 20 different languages so squatters dont buy them all up.

I still am not seeing much of a threat to my .com portfolio, though I'll be watching this a lot more closely than I've watched previous decisions made by ICANN.

Here is the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/te...ref=technology

[steveatvillas]

It was obvious to me after reading it that this is just another money-grab for ICANN. One of the domain companies even said as much, saying this was going to create a lot of new business for his company as companies all over the world will buy up domains in every language to protect their brands.

I've just read through the process on ICANN's website, and have downloaded the "Applicant Guidlines" all 152 pages of it... for some further reading. http://icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds...3-en.htm#files

But, PokerPie, you are so right. This is nothing more than a means to crank out another round of fees from legitimate Brand and TM owners — especially in the VERY expensive TM sunrise periods. I've already done this 6 times starting at .info up to .tel. A f*cking waste of time and money, IMHO — only to protect my IP.

ICANN underestimates the Domainer Industry — white and black hats — and doesn't realize that post sunrises A, B & C when reg fees are rationally priced, all the good ones will be snapped up and the non-domainers will once again be without their preferred domains.

Lol, the penny just dropped....This is what ICANN wants to happen....more fees with yet another sucker punch.

[bwhhisc]

I think the VAST, VAST majority of people will still remember the king of all tlds, .com. How many of us actually know how to type a character with a grave, acute, circumflex, tilde, diaeresis, ring, ligature, or cedilla, etc, and how many of us will actually use it as an extension. I have to agree that this will only strengthen traditional tlds, especially .coms.

IDNs are .com silly rabbit!! Any the best ones have been registered since 2000' waiting for what happened this week by ICANN.

IDNs are also .net, .jp, .cn, .tv, .biz etc etc.

and soon all those words will (also) be "aliased" to unicode (foreign scripts) so most likely .com holders can have both idn.com AND .com transliteral idn.idn (com).

Lastly....YOU and I (and most English speakers) will probably not use IDNs for our primary business and internet development, but the 80% of the world population that do NOT read or write English will gladly use them in their native languages.

What Mr. Expert did say, which has me concerned as a brander and TM holder, is: Jesus H., how many MORE names am I gonna have to reg to protect my IP? When does this BS end?

You can pretty much put your wallet away. Other than the upcoming launch of Russian (.РФ), a good portion of the top IDNs in every language in .com, .de, .cn, .jp etc etc are already registered, or reserved by the various countries governments or registries. There will be many new idn.cctld's for the smaller countries, and some new extensions, but idn.com is expected to be the universal "common denominator" (ie. top gtld for "branding" language-wide all 20+ Arabic countries and 300,000,000 Arabic speakers), versus searching 20 idn.cctlds that will be developed by each Arabic country. As for Russian idn.РФ(.rf) you have to be a passport holder, so that knocks most of us out unless you hurry and find a Russian bride.

IDNs in .com, .net started registering in 2000', other idn.cctld in 2002, 2003....been a long wait for many but seems the implementation of IDNs which most domainers predicted "will never happen" is about to unfold.

[Rubber Duck]

True but you need to put a lot more work into it than just entering words into an online translator. Thats where so many make mistakes.

Google is probably the most useful tool ultimately. Just like English Keywords other script keywords get lots of result if the mean anything.

But how about just making things simple for yourself and using www.IDN.bz

OK, I just twigged... they're not talking about releasing new domain names at all. They're simply talking about allowing people to use non-roman character sets to type .دوت instead of typing .com, .cn, .whatever.

So no new domain names will become available for registration, so owners of existing IDN.com domains don't need to worry about anything. Nothing changes. They just might end up getting more traffic.

It not absolutely clear cut but that will generally be the most likely outcome.

Hi folks:

I'm still a bit confused. Does this mean that instead of, say, ".com" or ".net" or ".org" we are going to have the phonetic equivalents in each non-roman language?

Or are each of the countries going to establish their own registries for "Commercial", "Networks" and "Organizations"?

Or, will this be combined with already existing punycode IDNs for the second level domain?

The reason I ask is that I did attempt to register the language/equivalent IDN for a name in Japanese in the .JP ccTLD. Unfortunately, there was no single literal equivalent for the English key term (a very common key term that we all use in English every day); but instead no less than three different ways of expressing the cultural and social meaning — depending on the age of the speaker, the immediate situation of the speaker and to whom one is speaking, the geographical dialect, etc.

So, what exactly is gonna happen?

Thanks,

Steve

Broadly all of the above, but you will have to register each keyword separately in each of your chosen languages, but I am fairly certain that for dot JP what you can now register is all you will ever be able to register, but the level of functionality will massively increase a little further down the road. The JPRS registry has done more research on aliasing than any other ccTLD registery, so it would seem logical that they will go that way even if there has been no formal announcement.

[yanni]

If domainers are confused, do you think Joe Arab will be confused?

Has it been proven that domainers are a more intelligent breed than your Joe Arab? [I urge you to look around this forum and take inventory of the multitudes of worthless domains regged on a daily basis.]

All Joe Arab has to do is register his name.cctld all in his own native script. How hard is that to conceptualize?

No reason for domainers to be confused, there's plenty of info around from ICANN, especially as of late, so once one familiarizes him/her-self with the simple facts, there won't be any misunderstandings, fear, and uneducated statements.

[Rubber Duck]

If domainers are confused, do you think Joe Arab will be confused?

They won't have to. If thing go to plan then they will find it as intuitive to them as you find English dot com intuitive to you. The system has been designed with the end user in mind. It is just we have to back engineer everything so we can understand it.

[Fearless]

Has it been proven that domainers are a more intelligent breed than your Joe Arab? [I urge you to look around this forum and take inventory of the multitudes of worthless domains regged on a daily basis.]

We are talking about domain names. You would assume Joe Domainer is less confused than Joe Arab about this.

[Rubber Duck]

I've just read through the process on ICANN's website, and have downloaded the "Applicant Guidlines" all 152 pages of it... for some further reading. http://icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds...3-en.htm#files

But, PokerPie, you are so right. This is nothing more than a means to crank out another round of fees from legitimate Brand and TM owners — especially in the VERY expensive TM sunrise periods. I've already done this 6 times starting at .info up to .tel. A f*cking waste of time and money, IMHO — only to protect my IP.

ICANN underestimates the Domainer Industry — white and black hats — and doesn't realize that post sunrises A, B & C when reg fees are rationally priced, all the good ones will be snapped up and the non-domainers will once again be without their preferred domains.

Lol, the penny just dropped....This is what ICANN wants to happen....more fees with yet another sucker punch.

This is simply not true and it would be largely pointless. In most of these place you don't even have a brand to protect in the local character sets. If dot com is aliased in 135 languages a registrant is not going to want all of them, he only wants the one that corresponds to the script he has registered. If aliasing is done through DNAMES which seems most likely there is no way of charging the registrant for the additional functionality. It will just all happen automatically whether you request it or not. Verisign may be able to use this as an argument for hiking fees across the board, but there is unlikely to much in the way of new registration over and above what you would have done anyway.

You got it, man.

I watched a clip yesterday on CNN, and they had some domain/IP lawyer "expert" and he did not give me a very good feeling with his explanation...mostly because he didn't really say anything concrete.

This clip was definitely for non-domainers, under the guise of "the domain world is 'opening up' with lots of new opportunities to get the name you want."...what he didn't say is, "But, it's gonna be in Farsi."

What Mr. Expert did say, which has me concerned as a brander and TM holder, is: Jesus H., how many MORE names am I gonna have to reg to protect my IP? When does this BS end?

When you realize you don't have any Brands in Farsi Script?

[yanni]

We are talking about domain names. You would assume Joe Domainer is less confused than Joe Arab about this.

Agreed, but Joe Arab was brought up in a discussion regarding domain names in your post.

And rightly so, I might add, because this is equally important to localized business as well as www users, as they will both benefit from this.