Cyrillic scripts in IDN Specifics and recommendations issued by .RU IDN working group Maria Stepanova Kira Litvina GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

Who uses Cyrillic scripts Widely used in Russia Ukraine Byelorussia Bulgaria Others Used also in many countries of former USSR, Macedonia, Mongolia, etc. GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

Cyrillic IDN under TLDs ccTLDs .ru, .bg, .ua, .by, .kz, .mk, etc. .pl has just announced Cyrillic IDN deployment .nu (.il?, .ca?, .us?...) gTLDs Deployed by Verisign under .com, .net in November 2003 ~7000 Cyrillic IDN registered by now Plans for deployment under .info Other gTLDs GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

IDN registration policy Restricting domains to characters of local language(s) only .jp, .kr (one language) foreseen under .ru .no (local official languages) .lu (nominated languages) Restricting domains to code pages .de, .at, .ch introducing IDN on April 1st No restrictions .nu GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

full chart can be found at http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0400.pdf Extract from Unicode cyrillic chart Cyrillic IDN under .ru will be restricted to 33 letters of Russian alphabet full chart can be found at http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0400.pdf GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3 Main concerns Overlapping of Cyrillic & Latin characters Keyboard switching Other concerns: limitations on IDN usage GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3 Overlapping 8 of 33 Cyrillic characters fully coincide with Latin characters in lower case: а, c, е, к, м, о, р, х, у 12 of 33 characters fully coincide with Latin characters in upper case: A, B, C, E, H, K, M, O, P, T, X, У Some characters look similar in some fonts: и and u; п and n GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3 Recommendation To avoid user confusion and possible speculations .RU IDN working group recommends Not to mix Cyrillic and Latin characters in IDN Clearly identify that domain name is Cyrillic coca.ru visually can not be identified as IDN GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

Cyrillic IDN identification could be solution of the problem, but the ending .ру (transliterated .ru) is not good as it coincides with ссTLD of Paraguay GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3 Solution recommended Use specific ending with unique Cyrillic character for example, .рф coca.рф can be visually identified as Cyrillic GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3 Main concerns Overlapping of Cyrillic & Latin characters Keyboard switching Other concerns: limitations on IDN usage GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

both Latin and Cyrillic keyboards are widely used in Russia Keyboard switching both Latin and Cyrillic keyboards are widely used in Russia GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3 2 keyboards, solution To enter www.<Cyrillic_IDN>.ru one needs to switch keyboard twice, which is inconvenient Developers of plug-ins should address the problem and envisage possibility to enter full Cyrillic IDN with recommended ending for example, ввв.<cyrillic_name>.рф, which seems to look like software used in .jp and .kr GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3 Other concerns Limited usage plug-ins to be downloaded MUA do not support IDN Less than 10% of registered IDN are delegated GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3 Conclusions Implementation of Cyrillic IDN is of interest to Russian Internet community Implementation should meet recommendations of .RU IDN wg Further investigation is recommended by IDN wg in consultation with lawyers as of launch strategy GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3 Launch strategy First come first served basis or Sunrise period prior to the open registration - For trademark owners - For registrants of ASCII-equivalent domains GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3

GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3 Questions? Useful links http://www.centr.org/meetings/ga-20/idn-implement.pdf http://www.icann.org/general/idn-guidelines-20jun03.htm http://www.minc.org/events/carthage2003/papers/CyrillicLWG.ppt Contact info: info@cctld.ru GAC Regional Forum, ccTLD ICANN Meeting, Rome, February 29 - March 3