Subject: GA-DIGEST V1 #1729
From: [email-masked] (GA-DIGEST)
To: [email-masked]

GA-DIGEST            Monday, June 23 2003            Volume 01 : Number 1729

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2003 15:10:56 +0200
From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] RE: Who'se done it? .org IDNs killed

On Sat, Jun 21, 2003 at 07:28:45AM -0400,
 Bruce Beckwith <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 90 lines which said:

> What I would like to remind you and the community about, however, is that
> when PIR assumed responsibility for the .org TLD, we made it clear to our
> registrar partners (for communication to their customers) that we would not
> support nor charge for existing IDN registrations, since they did not meet
> any industry-accepted standards.

I cannot speak for PIR, obviously, but this seems very
reasonable. Verisign tried to force the use of a proprietary technique
to do IDN, and I understand that PIR does not want to endorse it. I'm
sorry for the registrants, but they were victims of a Verisign
marketing false promise, it does not give them any rights.

ICANN was useful at least once, when warning people against these
false registrations. (Like many warnings, it was mostly ignored.)

Now that we have RFC 3490 and friends, the situation is quite
different and there is no reason to delay the introduction of IDN
(except technical details, of course, which can take a bit of time).

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2003 15:19:52 +0200
From: Vittorio Bertola <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Internationalized Domain Names deployed

On Sat, 21 Jun 2003 20:47:58 +0200 (CEST), you wrote:

>There are hardly any languages that are not handicaped by the ASCII
>limitations. In Europe I can only think of English and Welsh. Perhaps also
>Italian. (Roberto correct me!)

We currently use accented vowels in the end of words (theoretically we
also have accented vowels in the middle of words, but they're not
commonly used any more except in a few cases). Everybody has got used
to substituting an accented vowel with the equivalent non-accented one
in domain names, so I expect that most IDN registrations from Italy
will be from people already owning the non-accented equivalent of a
word having an accented vowel, and wishing to register the accented
equivalent to prevent misusage. In fact, while IDN registrations in
.it are currently forbidden, discussion is open on whether current
registrants should be given the accented equivalent for free.

Which brings me to the issue that nobody has ever decided whether,
say, the current owner of liberte.com should have any priority right
on libertè.com. (I think he should, otherwise we're going to see
plenty of disputes.) I tried to make this point during the public
forum in Rio, but I guess that, due to my bad relationship with
microphones, nobody actually got it :-(
- -- 
vb.                  [Vittorio Bertola - vb [at] bertola.eu.org]<---
- -------------------> http://bertola.eu.org/ <-----------------------
- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2003 08:20:39 -0500
From: "Jim Fleming" <[email-masked]>
Subject: [ga] http://vote.dot.de...DE...NH...WY...NV...CA...

http://vote.dot.de
http://www.freestateproject.org
June 20, 2003
"Tentative dates for the state vote have been set. If membership growth continues as expected, the Free State Project will reach
5000
in early August. Thus, state ballots will be sent out to existing members on July 15, and August 15 is the tentative deadline to
sign up in order to participate in the vote. The deadline to return your ballot will be September 8, and the ballots will be posted
on the website by member number so that each voter can check to make sure his ballot was counted correctly. The result will be
officially announced by September 15."
====

Jim Fleming
http://www.DOT-BIZ.com

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2003 12:08:20 +0200
From: "J-F C. (Jefsey)  Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Internationalized Domain Names deployed

On 20:47 21/06/03, Marc Schneiders said:
>So it is not a matter of the western world vis-a-vis Asia.

You welcome to help create a Dutch Eurolinc group.

We started with the French one. ( http://eurolinc.org ).
Interested people can contact JP Henninot on this
(you can use [email-masked]) he is
in charge of the relations with Europe and other
language groups.

Eurolinc WG-IDN is a member of the ccTLD IDN
working group as a language organization. We
maintain close relations with MINC. But we also
are interested in evangelizing the market, and to
represent users needs as well as consulting for
Govs. We are engaged in WSIS.

We are close from the positions of the ITU Marrakech
Resolution (uninanilously voted). We are cocnerned by
multilingualism for sites, documentation, lexical
definitions.

As part of our WSIS involvement, we have a pending
project which could be supported by the World Bank
for an "multilingual internet" education kit for Gov
decision makers.

We boostraped last year and  (however still small in
number) are now in good shape to help other language
initative. Louis Pouzin initiated an effor with the TFIPv6
on DNS that we will soon expand to IDNs (two of our
Members will be on the IDN Panel at the DN2003
to present end users and corporate users points
of view. (DN2003 is an ISOC yearly event [on July
3rd] Paul Twomey and seveal other ICANN people will
attend).

jfc

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2003 11:50:32 +0200
From: "J-F C. (Jefsey)  Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Internationalized Domain Names deployed

On 21:56 20/06/03, Stephane Bortzmeyer said:
>On Fri, Jun 20, 2003 at 11:54:28AM -0700,
>  George Kirikos <[email-masked]> wrote
>  a message of 30 lines which said:
>
> > See the announcement at:
> > http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-20jun03.htm
>[Not relevant for ".fr" but I digress...]

Thank you for telling that. But may be will you want to tell us why?

> > I expect a backlash, once the IP community and Business,
> > Constituencies amongst others, begin to see the abuses.
>
>IPR people are not the only stakeholders we need to take into
>account.

This is absolutely true. And IDN will help a lot. But if we
limit ourselves to them, it will be worst that nothing. If they
are accepted as a workng transition they will help. The
WTO General Agreement on Services together with notions
sich as the public naming service and the consequences of
a human right to an e-name must also be considered. End
of 2004 for one and end of 2005 for the other leave some a
good time window to uncover a consensus on the matter.

>Many other people are quite eager to see the actual
>deployment of IDN, specially outside of Great Britain's former
>colonies.

One another mailing list we just coined "CrofoCola"!
(Crown's former Colonies language). IDNs are a solution
for CrofoCola countries (not only for CoN [Commonwealth
of Nations] since now other countries may join) to respect
their own laws and to respond to the needs of their
own citizens.

IDNs do address the US need to support languages and
citizen names which are legally accepted such as Spanish
and French ones. As such ".us" could be a very good test
bench for a rather simple (accents and tilde) experimentation
of some magnitude.

Only MDN (multilingual) can address the multinational
governance demand for ML.ML domaine names. The
presented Guidelines are a way to disengage ICANN
and to transfer the reponsbility of the complexity or even
of the impossiblities inherited from IETF to gTLD and
ccTLD Managers qualified of "experts": "engineers"
passed the problem to "politics", who are passing it to
"experts".

But eventually only "users" VDN (vernacular domain
names [vernacular means someone/trade comonly used
language]) will stay with us. And we still have work
ahead. Internetting was about technologies and networks.
Started interconnecting computers. Should also be
eventually internetting human people.

You know IDNs designers are very clear about the fact
they took into consideration ICANN, Registry and
Registrars problems, not registrant's needs. These needs
are described as far too remote from their engineering
competences. This position was identified very early at
the WG-IDN and contradicts with its hopefull charter.
IMHO the WG-IDN was right, but this shows the limits
of the current ICANN/IAB/IETF system when extra-Legacy
problems are to be addressed. The ERC in establishing
a liaison with "engineers" at BoD level is probably a step
in the good direction.

As one of the "experts" (belonging to AFNIC) who shared
in the "engineers" IETF team, you are most probably one
of those whose advices are the most interesting for us all.
You also have the language. Please go ahead!

> > Be afraid, be very afraid....
>Be happy we have at last the opportunity to use your
>own alphabet.

True. But one will not remove from my mind that this
might seme form of "CrofoCola e-colonization" if I
cannot use my own alphabet in my own namespace
with my own semantic: "net" or "biz" have no meaning
in French

I welcome Legacy's enlarging from ASCII to Unicode.
However I think they did not planned well and made
two key mistakes (which will have to be corrected)). But
the real need is to find a consensual universal way
to support e-networks names consistently with the
multinational multilingual real world of the other
networks.

Thank you for your inputs.
jfc

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2003 23:19:20 +0200 (CEST)
From: Marc Schneiders <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] RE: Who'se done it? .org IDNs killed

On Sun, 22 Jun 2003, at 15:10 [=GMT+0200], Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 21, 2003 at 07:28:45AM -0400,
>  Bruce Beckwith <[email-masked]> wrote
>  a message of 90 lines which said:
>
> > What I would like to remind you and the community about, however, is that
> > when PIR assumed responsibility for the .org TLD, we made it clear to our
> > registrar partners (for communication to their customers) that we would not
> > support nor charge for existing IDN registrations, since they did not meet
> > any industry-accepted standards.
>
> I cannot speak for PIR, obviously, but this seems very
> reasonable. Verisign tried to force the use of a proprietary technique
> to do IDN, and I understand that PIR does not want to endorse it. I'm
> sorry for the registrants, but they were victims of a Verisign
> marketing false promise, it does not give them any rights.

I have the following issues with this perspective:

1. PIR should have told us. More so since they promised no change, and
kept up the IDN org names until at least March 12. [Yes, Dave Crocker,
that was the issue, read my mail.]

2. I'd rather say the people were the victim of ICANN giving ORG to
another entity, one that refuses to support the 'testbed'. Without that
ORG IDNs would still work like those under .com and .net.

Should we expect that .net IDNs will stop working in 2005 when .net will
be given (if that happens) to another?

> Now that we have RFC 3490 and friends, the situation is quite
> different and there is no reason to delay the introduction of IDN
> (except technical details, of course, which can take a bit of time).

Yes, it is marvellous that some progress in standard setting has been
made, at last. No reason though to SILENTLY kill part of an earlier
testbed.

Stability?

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2003 23:34:00 +0200 (CEST)
From: Marc Schneiders <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Internationalized Domain Names deployed

On Sun, 22 Jun 2003, at 15:19 [=GMT+0200], Vittorio Bertola wrote:

> Which brings me to the issue that nobody has ever decided whether,
> say, the current owner of liberte.com should have any priority right
> on libertè.com. (I think he should, otherwise we're going to see
> plenty of disputes.)

I am not sure this is as easy as that. There are so many accents, and
though not all may make sense in all positions, it would give potential
large rights to some people, most often for no reason. It may also lead to
people feeling forced to register an additional 7, 8, 9 domains with all
possible accents on the vowels (in many European languages). This will
only benefit the registries and registrars. And it will make perfectly
legitimate and non-confusing use of names impossible. E.g. in German you
can have dots over many vowels (so-called Umlaut). German 'bar' is English
'bar' or 'cash', but with the Umlaut it is 'bear'. No reason to give the
owner of bar.com or cash.com also bear.com, is there?

Similarly French 'la' and the same with accent grave (`) have totally
different meanings ('the' and 'there').

(And thx for correcting me on my non-existent Italian.)

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2003 17:20:07 +0100
From: Michael Froomkin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Reverses Barcelona.com Deci sion

Yes, yes, no.  See below.

Marc Schneiders wrote:

>This is more interesting than I thought at first. Does it mean that if
>barcelona.com was registered with a Spanish registrar, the outcome might
>have been different? 
>
Yes. 

>Appeal against a UDRP decision has to take place
>where the registrar is, isn't that so?
>  
>
Yes, except that the UDRP complainant could have picked the registrant's 
jurisdiction.  And the registrant is of course always free to pick any 
place with jurisdiction over the TM owner, since this isn't a true 
"appeal" but is technically a sort of collageral attack.

>Is there a country somewhere in the world that hates trademarks? 
>
Not really.  Every economy worth mentioning is a member of the Paris 
Convention, which substantially harmonizes basic trademark law.  Most 
major economies are also members of the Madrid Protocol, which adds 
additional protections, and many of those also belong to TRIPS, which 
really goes over the top.   The Paris convention is nearly universal.  
But I think North Korea is not a member...

>I might
>set up a registrar business there then. If there are several countries
>that think more lightly about trademark rights, I'd like to know one where
>court cases are reasonably priced.
>
Fuggadaboutit.

>
>On Tue, 3 Jun 2003, at 12:02 [=GMT+0200], [email-masked] wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Under US law, says the US court.
>>
>>But what about Spanish law?  Not applicable in US court, because of ACPA and
>>the general principle of territoriality of trademark law, says the US court.
>>
>>However, I suppose, the City Council of Barcelona could bring an action in
>>Spanish courts, under Spanish law, if it felt that the activities exercised
>>under the disputed domain name were violating Spanish law in Spain.
>>
>>If such an action suceeded in Spain, then the question of whether or not the
>>Spanish court's decision could be enforced in the US is probably a
>>complicated question.
>>
>>Best,
>>Richard Hill
>>
>>
>>
>>    
>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: John Berryhill Ph.D. J.D. [mailto:[email-masked]]
>>>Sent: Monday, 02 June 2003 22:43
>>>To: [GA]
>>>Subject: [ga] 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Reverses Barcelona.com
>>>Decision
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>As if anyone needed to know, "Barcelona" is not a trademark
>>>of the City of
>>>Barcelona:
>>>
>>>http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/021396.P.pdf
>>>
>>>
>>>It looks like an update will be needed here to avoid false
>>>advertising:
>>>http://www.oblon.com/barcelona/
>>>
>>>
>>>      
>>>

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 01:43:02 +0200 (CEST)
From: Marc Schneiders <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Reverses Barcelona.com Deci sion

On Sun, 22 Jun 2003, at 17:20 [=GMT+0100], Michael Froomkin wrote:

> Yes, yes, no.  See below.
>
> Marc Schneiders wrote:
>
> >This is more interesting than I thought at first. Does it mean that if
> >barcelona.com was registered with a Spanish registrar, the outcome might
> >have been different?
> >
> Yes.
>
> >Appeal against a UDRP decision has to take place
> >where the registrar is, isn't that so?
> >
> >
> Yes, except that the UDRP complainant could have picked the registrant's
> jurisdiction.

That could be in the same country as the registrar. A PO Box Inc.

> And the registrant is of course always free to pick any
> place with jurisdiction over the TM owner, since this isn't a true
> "appeal" but is technically a sort of collageral attack.

I am not sure I get this. To stop the execution of the UDRP decision one
has to file in the registrar's or registrant's jurisdiction. No?

> >Is there a country somewhere in the world that hates trademarks?
> >
> Not really.  Every economy worth mentioning

How about .cc or .tv not to mention .tm?

> is a member of the Paris
> Convention, which substantially harmonizes basic trademark law.  Most
> major economies are also members of the Madrid Protocol, which adds
> additional protections, and many of those also belong to TRIPS, which
> really goes over the top.   The Paris convention is nearly universal.
> But I think North Korea is not a member...

And China?

> >I might
> >set up a registrar business there then. If there are several countries
> >that think more lightly about trademark rights, I'd like to know one where
> >court cases are reasonably priced.
> >
> Fuggadaboutit.

Yes, I better. Though it would be nice to know when one registers a
domain, where it is best protected against reverse domain name hijacking.

> >On Tue, 3 Jun 2003, at 12:02 [=GMT+0200], [email-masked] wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>Under US law, says the US court.
> >>
> >>But what about Spanish law?  Not applicable in US court, because of ACPA and
> >>the general principle of territoriality of trademark law, says the US court.
> >>
> >>However, I suppose, the City Council of Barcelona could bring an action in
> >>Spanish courts, under Spanish law, if it felt that the activities exercised
> >>under the disputed domain name were violating Spanish law in Spain.
> >>
> >>If such an action suceeded in Spain, then the question of whether or not the
> >>Spanish court's decision could be enforced in the US is probably a
> >>complicated question.
> >>
> >>Best,
> >>Richard Hill
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>-----Original Message-----
> >>>From: John Berryhill Ph.D. J.D. [mailto:[email-masked]]
> >>>Sent: Monday, 02 June 2003 22:43
> >>>To: [GA]
> >>>Subject: [ga] 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Reverses Barcelona.com
> >>>Decision
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>As if anyone needed to know, "Barcelona" is not a trademark
> >>>of the City of
> >>>Barcelona:
> >>>
> >>>http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/021396.P.pdf
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>It looks like an update will be needed here to avoid false
> >>>advertising:
> >>>http://www.oblon.com/barcelona/
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
>
>

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 09:17:16 +0200
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [ga] Internationalized Domain Names deployed

- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Marc Schneiders" <[email-masked]>
Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2003 11:34 PM
Subject: Re: [ga] Internationalized Domain Names deployed

E.g. in German you
> can have dots over many vowels (so-called Umlaut). German 'bar' is English
> 'bar' or 'cash', but with the Umlaut it is 'bear'. No reason to give the
> owner of bar.com or cash.com also bear.com, is there?

Yes.

Bär = bear
Bar = bar
bar = cash, devoid

Simon

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 17:02:25 +0200
From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Internationalized Domain Names deployed

On Sun, Jun 22, 2003 at 03:19:52PM +0200,
 Vittorio Bertola <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 31 lines which said:

> Which brings me to the issue that nobody has ever decided whether,
> say, the current owner of liberte.com should have any priority right
> on libertè.com. 

It is a very interesting issue but I do not think it is possible to
get an international answer. People in France and in Sweden, for
instance, have different expectations when Unicode characters are not
available. French-speaking people are typically more lax about
composed characters.

AFNIC's Board decided that two labels of the same bundle (for instance
cafe and café) must be registered only to the same registrant. We will
register IDN that way.

Do note that it requires a table of variants, which involves some
heated discussions about the semantics of the various characters.

> (I think he should, otherwise we're going to see plenty of
> disputes.)

Anyway, it is a matter to be settled at a national level. Completely
off-topic for ICANN.

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

End of GA-DIGEST V1 #1729
*************************