1 MULTILINGUAL DOMAIN NAMES Hirofumi Hotta （ JPRS & JPNIC ） APAN2002 Conference in Phuket January 24, 日本レジストリサービス.jp （ INTERNATIONALIZED ）

2 non-English characters in Step1 –Phonetic mapping in texts Step2 –Native language characters in texts Step3 –Native language characters in “Subject” fields Step4 ? –Native language characters in “To” and “From” field Names such as company names and personal names in the social relevant context should be presented in their native language

3 Demands on multilingual domain names Rapid growth of the Internet –More non-English speakers are becoming Internet users People using non-ASCII characters Undesirable unification in LDH world – 博文, 博史, 宏史, …..are all “hirofumi”s in ASCII space –Apostrophe, accents, umlauts, ….. cannot be used in ASCII space Demand on multilingual domain names

4 History (technology) Late 1990s –Developed at the National University of Singapore July 1998 –Asia Pacific Networking Group iDNS Working group : development of the experimental implementation of an Internationalized multilingual multiscript Domain Names Service iDomain Working Group : creation of an iDNS testbed in Asia Pacific countries –Prototypes demonstrated in international conferences –BoFs held in international conferences APRICOT INET Nov –BoF in IETF –IDN (Internationalized Domain Name) Working Group in IETF

5 History (deployment) End of 1999 –Several companies began commercialization of the multilingual domain name technology –Several testbeds emerged July –MINC (Multilingual Domain Names Consortium) promotion of the multilingualization of Internet names, including Internet domain names and keywords, the internationalization of Internet names standards and protocols, technical coordination, and liaison with other international bodies –Country/regional organizations AINC (Arabic Internet Names Consortium) CDNC (Chinese Domain Name Consortium ) INFITT (International Forum for IT in Tamil ) JDNA (Japanese Domain Names Association )

6 History (policy) March 2001 –Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) Working Group in ICANN Board Fact finding survey concerning technical, policy, and service aspects Survey report published in Sept –Market demand shown –List of issues elaborated –GAC (Governmental Advisory Committee) of ICANN communiqué expressing GAC’s support for multilingual domain names Sept –IDN Committee Will recommend solutions of non-technical issues

7 Basic technical requirements Preservation of compatibility with current domain names Preservation of uniqueness of domain name space The Internet must not be divided into islands Required by IAB (Internet Architecture Board)

8 Character codes of multilingual domain names Current : proprietary (local) standard –in PCs –in PDAs –in Internet-enabled phones Best current solution may be –UNICODE –Specification of code sets of many languages Additional issues –traditional Chinese characters / simplified Chinese characters Are they same characters in domain names ? Is this a local code issue or universal protocol issue ?

9 Client-side vs. Server-side solutions Client-side solution –Translation between multilingual script and ASCII- compatible representation is performed in the user application –Domain names are processed as ASCII domain names all over the Internet Server-side solution –Domain names are sent over the Internet in local encoding –Applications and services communicate with each other using non-ASCII domain names all the way ASCII domain names multilingual domain names client-side solution server-side solution userapplicationDNS (chosen by IETF)

10 How multilingual string is converted to ASCII original string normalized string ASCII string Internet (based on ASCII) unification of the strings considered to be the same conversion to an ASCII string NAMEPREP ACE ABC カンパニー.JP ＡＢＣｶﾝﾊﾟﾆｰ.JP Ａ B Ｃカンハ゜ニー.JP ABC カンパニー.JP ZQ--GD7UD72C75B2X46RZP6A.JP ex)

11 Issues in using ACE Subspace is used by multilingual domain names Issues –Reservation of the subspace –Length limitation is severer Domain label Domain name ASCII Domain Names ACE-ed Multilingual Domain Names Multilingual Domain Names ACE decode

12 Intellectual Property Rights More problems will arise with multilingual domain names –Names in its local language characters means more than those in ASCII characters IPR protection – before registration –Reserved domain names –Sunrise period IPR protection – after registration –DRP (Dispute Resolution Polcy)

13 Defining a multilingual top level domain Current implementation of multilingual domain names –Second level domain or under Allowed by current DNS architecture and technology –Top level domain Alternate root Inclusive root Pseudo-root Above are only to satisfy commercial drive or users’ demands on early deployment of multilingual domain names It is important for ICANN to define a multilingual top level domain creation policy

14 Issues in various TLDs {non-ASCII-string}.{ASCII-ccTLD} {non-ASCII-string}.{ASCII-gTLD} –Organizations already being authorized are responsible for the domain name space {any-string}.{non-ASCII-ccTLD} –One organization from the relevant country is named to be responsible for the domain name space –If a country has more than 1 official language, What is the language for non-ASCII-ccTLD, or How many non-ASCII-ccTLDs are given to the country {any-string}.{non-ASCII-gTLD} –No one can tell whether top level domain “. 企業 ” is Chinese or Japanese –Difficulty in choosing a responsible organization who in what country

15 Other political issues What are the languages that constitute multilingual domain names –Some languages have 2 or more kinds of scripts –Traditional Chinese/simplified Chinese Who is the language authority for multilingual domain names –Should rules be the same even under different TLDs? A single domain name registry should not be the ultimate authority of for the rules Is such rule definition an international issue? –Language rules are known to only people using the language To what extent does the solution need international standard or local coordination? Each language stakeholders should coordinate among themselves

16 Future Issues synergy deployment of name servers with multilingual domain names growth of the number of multilingual domain names and their users applications with multilingual domain name facilities policy and coordination of registration and management rules technology standardization and development

17 Introduction of Japanese Domain Names Registration as second level domains –ASCII label –Japanese label Japanese domain names, consisting of Chinese and Kana characters as well as ASCII characters, can be registered –Up to 15 characters Japanese domain names are registered only as general-use JP domain names. 日本レジストリサービス.JP Top level domainSecond level domain

18 Categories of Reserved Japanese Domain Names Prefectures; large cities designated by ordinance; prefectural capital cities Single characters in Hiragana, Katakana, numbers written in Chinese characters, prolonged sound symbols, and others. – あ、イ、五、ー、 … Names of primary and secondary educational organizations (primary schools, junior high schools, etc.) –Names ending with “ 小学校 (primary school),” “ 中学校 (junior high school)” and “ 高等学校 (high school).” Names of international inter-governmental organizations (such as the United Nations) Names related to administrative, judicial, and legislative agencies Japanese common nouns –Ex) service, station, sightseeing,... (that may appear in yellow pages) Names required for JPNIC operations – ジェイピーニック、ドメイン名、日本語ドメイン名、 …

19 Phased introduction Priority registration –22/Feb/ /Mar/2001 –Trademarks, registered names, university names, personal names in full –In case of competition, registrants were determined by draw Concurrent registration –02/Apr/ /Apr/2001 –All applications which arrived in this period were regarded as arrived at the same time, not in the order received –In case of competition, registrants were determined by draw First-come-first-served basis registration –07/May/2001 -

20 Results of Priority Registration Priority Registration Applications Trademarks Registered names Personal names academic Total number of applications 8, ,900 12, ,100 12, ASCIIJapaneseTotalCategory 8,50025,40033,800 Number of domain names registered 6,50022,60029,100

21 Results of Concurrent Registration Multiple applications Single applications Total Multiple applications 32,500 22,600 55,100 4,600 41,700 23,400 65,200 5,200 74,200 46, ,300 9,800 ASCIIJapaneseTotalCategory Single applications 22,60023,40046,000 Total 27,20028,60055,800 Number of domain names Number of applications # of domain names as of 1/Dec/2001 Traditional283,300 ASCII - General use122,000 ASCII61,500 Japanese

22 Technologies in Japanese JP domain names NAMEPREP+RACE (AMC-ACE-Z in May) mDNkit (open source) –Software library for applications –Software tool for nameserver software upgrade Applications –DNS Proxy –mDN wrapper (which intercepts communications and converts domain names) –IE + RealNames –Users can develop applications using mDNkit

23 Japanese Domain Names Association Activities –Information exchange –Standardization of usage –Development of a tool kit –Support for development and testing Members –ISPs –Application/Hardware vendors –Domain name registries/registrars –Universities Working Groups –Interface specification –Web –Mail –VoIP jdna.jp 日本語ドメイン名協会.jp