Originally Posted by Rubber Duck

Frankly, I think most people are missing the point. The real momentum behind this was the Introduction of IDN TLDs and the general expansion of TLDs was largely a sop to xenophobes to allow this to happen. However, I believe ICANN too have largely missed the point, as it is not the TLD which the Chinese, Japanese and Russians are really having problems with. It is the second level, which has in any case been there for a while. Paste an IDN.com into a field of Chinese text and then do the same with a Chinese IDN.IDN. Not difficult to see which stands out the most. Dot com is an established global brand. It is bigger than Coca Cola every market in the World. Every keyboard has the Latin Characters to produce it.

The only really solid argument for producing IDN.IDN is the incongruity of Right to LeftLanguages with Left to Right extension like dot Com. Yes, the Arabs, Iranians, Pakistanis and Jews need it. Of course if the case had been put forward on this basis alone, it would not have happened for another 100 years as the system is still very much still US-centric even though things are slowly changing.

What ICANN should have focused on is forcing out access of browsers that won't support Unicode characters. When IE6 attempts to access the DNS it should be kicked backed. It should be kicked backed because its presence is stiffling innovation in much of Asia. It should, however, also be kicked back because it is a security nightmare that only still exists because of the monopolistic position which Microsoft has unfairly gained in the browser market, and the total distain it is has subsequently shown for its customers.

ICANN should enforce Browser Standardisation as a prequalification for access to the Internet. Software writers should be forced to meet mimimum requirements before their browsers are given access to the Internet's addressing system.

As for dot Web, probably no harm in it, provided it is not infringing the Intellectual Property rights of existing TLD owners, but not really going to rock anyone's World. What people haven't noticed is that the presumption of renewal on New TLDs also infers the same on the Existing TLDs. It would seem that never again will Verisign have to compete in a beauty contest for dot Net or be challenged over their entitlement to run the dot Com registry.