Chinese Domain Name Consortium Rejects IETF Approach

In follow-up to my piece yesterday related to the last call on the IETF approach to implementing internationalized domain names, the Chinese Domain Name Consortium (CDNC), set up by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), Taiwan Network Information Center (TWNIC), Hong Kong Network Information Center (HKNIC) and Macau Network Information Center (MONIC), has rejected the approach taken by the IETF in the following statement:

1. Currently, IETF IESG has begun Last Call on the set of core documents IDNA+NAMEPREP+PUNYCODE of IDN WG, but the architecture of IDN defined in the above three documents does not solve the traditional and simplified Chinese character variant problem: it’s a half-baked solution for Chinese users. That will cause serious delegation problem in the application of Chinese Domain Name.

2. IETF IDN WG does not solve Chinese Domain Name technical problems. Under the current condition, if IETF approves these IDN drafts without publishing any complementary documents simultaneously, registrars will open Chinese Domain Name registration without considering the requirements of Chinese Domain Name and Chinese Domain Name will fall into confusion. This will damage Chinese Internet community seriously.

3. What’s more, it stands a good chance that software vendors will not deploy or modify client software to support IDN too, because the current so-called IDN solution is a defective solution, which will be widely against end users, administrators and Chinese Internet communities, and bring them into much trouble.

For those who don't understand this problem (called the TC/SC equivalence problem), here's a greatly simplified explanation. Some languages, like Chinese, have more than one script: for example, traditional Chinese (TC), which is used in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and simplified Chinese (SC), which is generally used in mainland China (although the Chinese also use the traditional script in some cases). Most Chinese can recognize the origin of the simplified script as it orginates in the traditional more cursive characters. It is argued by some that there should be an equivalence between Chinese domain names whether in traditional or simplified scripts and therefore they should resolve to the same entity. To understand the thoughts behind this argument, see this Internet draft.

12:04:33 PM    Google It!