National and Regional
Approaches to Multilingual
Internet Names
Asia Pacific Perspective
Tan Tin Wee
Retired Chairman
Asia Pacific Networking Group
(APNG)
Historical Origins of Multilingual
Domain Names
• 1998 – APNG Chairman’s Commission
• 1998 – National University of Singapore research
project – proxy/UTF5 solution
• 1998 – Asia Pacific iDNS Testbed – at least five
countries
• 1998 – APNG/NUS Presentation to INET’98, Geneva.
• 1998 – APNG/NUS Presentation to IFWP, Singapore.
• 1999 – AP Task Force on iDNS
• 1999 – iDNS IPv6 research project funded by PanAsia
Networking, IDRC Canada
Historical Origins of Multilingual
Domain Names – II
• 2000 Formation of Multilingual Internet
Names Consortium - MINC
• 2000 CDNC - Chinese
• 2000 International Forum for IT in Tamil
(INFITT) – Tamil WG03
• 2001 AINC – Arabic Internet Names
Consortium
• 2001 JDNA – Japanese Domain Name Assn
Key Issues - I
Multilingual Support in Internet Names is imperative
• 55% of content non-English
• Rapid Sustained Growth - China/HK/Taiwan, Japan,
Korea
• Rapid growth in developing countries in the region –
Thailand, India, Indonesia, Philippines
• Early phase – Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, etc
Key Issues - II
Principle of Least Astonishment for Users
• Chinese Traditional/Simplified,
• Kanji/Hirigana/Katakana,
• Hanguel/Hanja
• Arabic/Farsi/Urdu/Jawi
Key Issues - III
• Autonomy
• Self Determination
• National Security for authorities
Key Issues - IV
Interoperability across languages Minority Ethnic Groups and Multi-racial
societies
• Indian Languages
• IndoChinese languages
• Large minority groups in China –
Mongolian, Tibetan etc.
Consequences of Delay
• Application/Vendor dependent domain names and
keywords – already happened
• Keyword masquerade as domain names – 1 to 3
months
• National Intranets/Extranets with national
language-specific roots imminent in 3 to 6 months
• Namespace collisions
• User confusion, dissatisfaction, disservice
Solutions?
• Demythologise the sacred root of
IAB/IANA/IETF/ICANN
• Liberalisation of the Internet - Distributed Unique
Root or multiple but singly coordinated roots?
• Controlled Economy or Market forces?
• Mutual respect of all languages and scripts
• Competence of authority
• Speed of service
• Proactive rather than reactive
• Devolution of responsibility
APNG
• APNG Commission 1998 gave birth to IDN
• APNG desires for Internet Digital Divide in
our region to be bridged quickly
• APNG desires early resolution
• APNG wishes to help and cooperate with
other regions
• APNG has provided technical directions
and now hopes to contribute some ideas for
future directions in politcal, governance and
management
APNG
• APNG also working on IPv6 IDNs
• APNG will help and cooperate with MINC
in new “above” DNS solutions such as
multilingual multiscript keywords
• APNG will encourage more AP citizens to
participate in Technical solutions in IETF
More Information
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Website: http://www.apng.org
Email:
sec@apng.org
Info: http://www.apng.org/commission/idns/
MINC: http://www.minc.org/
AINC: http://www.a-inc.org/
CDNC: http://www.cdnc.org/
JDNA : http://www.jdna.org/
INFITT: http://www.infitt.org/