ICANN & Verisign have signed agreement on Verisign's IDN
.IDN applications (the petitions for .com and .net gTLD alternatives were pending since 13 June 2012).
Contracts were signed (link) 15 January 2015 (
点看 example).
This should be great news for IDN.com domain owners, and for mobile handset users. International transliterations potentially infringe on existing
.com &
.net registrants, and Verisign pledged to protect existing registrant rights at minimal registrant cost. It's unclear if the present explanation on the Verisign webpages (as of 25 January, below) is still fully accurate. I asked Verisign, who replied: "
ICANN has told us that we will have to submit a Registry Services (RSEP) request regarding the approach we plan to use."
Verisign's registration policy is explained on their website as follows:
https://www.verisigninc.com/en_US/channel-resources/domain-registry-products/idn/index.xhtml
"Verisign’s proposed approach for these new IDN gTLDs will help ensure a ubiquitous end-user experience, and helps to protect consumers and business from having to register purely defensive domain names in our TLDs. In practice, Verisign’s proposed approach means that the registrant for a second-level domain name in our IDN.IDN, IDN.com or IDN.net will have the sole right (subject to applicable rights protection mechanisms), but not be required to register that identical second-level domain in any of the top-level IDNs, .com or .net as applicable."
"In order to illustrate our approach, we have identified two use cases below:
Use Case No. 1: Bob Smith already has a registration for an IDN.net second level domain name. That second level domain name will be unavailable in all of the new .net TLDs except to Bob Smith. Bob Smith may choose not to register that second level domain name in any of the new transliterations of the .net TLDs.
Use Case No. 2: John Doe does not have a registration for an IDN.com second level domain name. John Doe registers a second level domain name in our Thai transliteration of .com but in no other TLD. That second level domain name will be unavailable in all other transliterations of .com IDN TLDs and in the .com registry unless and until John Doe (and only John Doe) registers it in another .com IDN TLD or in the .com registry."
In mid-2013, Pat Kane offered ICANN more detail about Verisign's IDN.IDN plans
:
https://www.icann.org/resources/correspondence/kane-to-willett-2013-07-11-en
Update from VeriSign conference call, 5 February 2015
Jim Bidzos, VeriSign Chairman, President, CEO:
"We have signed the registry agreements for .comsec and 11 IDN TLDs, eight of which are transliterations of .com and three are transliterations of .net"
"While these registry agreements with ICANN are signed, before these domains become generally available, a few more steps remain, including delegation, controlled interruption which deals with potential name collisions, completion of a sunrise period, and finalization and approval of our launch plans. The failure to gain approval, if required, could delay a general availability date or could result in Verisign having to revise our go-to-market strategy for the IDNs."
