cyrillic IDN

Cyrillic scripts in IDN: 

Cyrillic scripts in IDN Specifics and recommendations issued by .RU IDN working group Maria Stepanova Kira Litvina

Who uses Cyrillic scripts: 

Who uses Cyrillic scripts Widely used in Russia Ukraine Byelorussia Bulgaria Others Used also in many countries of former USSR, Macedonia, Mongolia, etc.

Cyrillic IDN under TLDs: 

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

IDN registration policy: 

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

Extract from Unicode cyrillic chartCyrillic IDN under .ru will be restricted to 33 letters of Russian alphabet: 

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

Main concerns: 

Main concerns Overlapping of Cyrillic & Latin characters Keyboard switching Other concerns: limitations on IDN usage

Overlapping: 

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

Recommendation: 

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

Cyrillic IDN identification : 

Cyrillic IDN identification <cyrillic_IDN>.ру could be solution of the problem, but the ending .ру (transliterated .ru) is not good as it coincides with ссTLD of Paraguay

Solution recommended: 

Solution recommended Use specific ending with unique Cyrillic character for example, .рф coca.рф can be visually identified as Cyrillic

Main concerns: 

Main concerns Overlapping of Cyrillic & Latin characters Keyboard switching Other concerns: limitations on IDN usage

Keyboard switching: 

Keyboard switching both Latin and Cyrillic keyboards are widely used in Russia

2 keyboards, solution: 

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

Other concerns: 

Other concerns Limited usage plug-ins to be downloaded MUA do not support IDN Less than 10% of registered IDN are delegated

Conclusions: 

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

Launch strategy: 

Launch strategy First come first served basis or Sunrise period prior to the open registration - For trademark owners - For registrants of ASCII-equivalent domains

Questions?: 

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