>> MODERATOR: Hello.  We're pleased you're all here.  Today we will talk about IDN domains and all the problems and perspectives it will bring to us.  We will make it as interactive as possible.  So I suggest all the participants, if you have any questions or recommendations during the session, to bring it and speak it out.  Not waiting for the end of it.  Let me represent all the source persons and all the speakers who are joining us during this session.  Let's start from this side. 

>> LIANNA GALSTYAN:   And register of the republic.  And Jonne Soininen from ICANN.  My co‑moderater Andrea Beccalli and Edmon Chung, Irina Danelia, and also our colleague from DotAsia, Jennifer Chung.  So let's start. 

While preparing for the session, we have some questions that can help us review IDN from the users' point of view and our professional point of view, the IDN can be seen.  So the first question I would like to address to every speaker is that the main idea behind the IDN was to let people fully use their language in the Internet.  And do you think it was a real problem for them?  Do not have the ability to use it or it is not a problem?  How do you think, after the few years of existing in the domains?  Let's start ‑‑ yeah, sure. 

>> PANELIST: Just a couple of things.  First of all, don't be intimidated by this very crowded panel.  This is a very serious and formal setting.  You are in the headquarters in Geneva.  This doesn't help.  Don't feel that we are here teaching you or giving you the fruit.  Maybe some of us think so, but we don't.

The second point, we want to have this as interactive as possible, just to make sure that everybody is aware.  Does everybody know what is IDN in the room?  We don't pretend that everybody understands and is completely on track with this very technical part, it actually means a lot in terms of allowing all languages on the Internet.  It is fine?  We don't need to dive into technical?  Perfect. 

With that, I will just pass on the question, with the ice breaker into the session.

>> MODERATOR: Okay.  Let's try to answer this question first.  After that, I have some more from the civic review that made not so long time ago.  Then we will review all of this.  So please.

>> PANELIST: I am Sasha, and I will speaking now as manager of national mas dona.  I led the registry for five years, in the time we applied for Macedonia IDN.  The idea to apply for the Cyrillic IDN started long time ago, but because it was the transition time of the registry, so that is why maybe we applied little bit later, not so late but as a fifth Cyrillic country which get the national domain.  We have to say that in our country, official Cyrillic.  It makes sense to apply for national IDN domain, but also Latinic alphabet is commonly used in atmosphere of communication.  It was not necessary but it was kind of political decision of the country and of the government to apply and to have the IDN as the improvement of the Macedonian language, et cetera. 

So those were the main reasons why our country applied and finally get the national IDN which is in Cyrillic letters.  So as a starting point, I will stop here, and later on, I will discuss the other use of the application and usage for national IDN.

>> PANELIST: Thank you, Sasha, I think we should keep it brief, right now, the answer for the question.  Just a few phrases.  Next one, please.

>> PANELIST: Yes, I can confirm that people, that the multilingual issue.  We found in our survey, as a preparatory for the third annual meeting in our office.  When we ask our community, people were saying people can create their own website.  IDN are important to get more people on line and the next group of Internet users on online.  They're important for identity as Sasha mentioned and for the development of the marketing world Internet.  Thus they help protect the local licenses, culture.  (?)

 

>> MODERATOR: Lianna? 

>> LIANNA GALSTYAN:  I would say there are unfortunately those that don't speak our language and Russian languages.  So when we launch the bill.  We reach this audience and help those people to fully express themselves on the Internet.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you.  That is very interesting to get the perspective from the different regions, because the problem seems to be very common for all of us.  But all the people in all the regions have different, you know, execute.  Lessons learned.  So that's why this same issue can be considered to be problem or not be the problem at the same time.  That is why I want to finish with the registers first and then we will ‑‑ so on.  Edmon, what do you think, is it really problem to speak English in Internet or do we really need the ability to use multiple languages? 

>> EDMON CHUNG: Edmon Chung from DotAsia.  That is a very good question.  I have been very convinced, 20 years ago, when I started down the path of IDN and getting IDN started.  I am still convinced although it has been 20 years.  So things have changed.  I don't think the optimistic view right now is misguided.  I think it is a little bit different than 20 years ago.  I think the technology have moved in.  The whole environment have changed.  Again, you mentioned about next billion people.  A couple of things that will really change the landscape, one of which is audio input methodologies.

When you talk to your phone, to Siri or to enter or go to website on the Internet, it would be very weird to have a Chinese person speak to his phone in, you know, English.  Spelling out the e‑mail address or domain name.  So I am ‑‑ I remain optimistic.  20 years ago, I said it would take three to five years.  I am still saying that, but I think with a renewed sense of the environment on the Internet.  I will come back as discussed. 

Something that we are seeing is there is an increase in the DNS resolution rate for IDN.  And just last year, in Japan, there is an observed 30 times increase, although it is from less than 0.01% to 0.2% of all queries.  That is a huge jump in interest in the IDN with the DNS solution.

I will stop there.  There are a number of things that give me the optimist view.  I think it is a market failure right now.  The end‑users want, it but we're unable to get it to the end‑user to make full use of it.

>> MODERATOR: Uh‑huh.  Thank you so much.  Irina, you are helping manage two domains.  One is the most successful IDN in the world.  It is (?).  And another one is the dot dits and have many special purposes.  What do you think about this?  Is it really help people, especially in Russia to work on the Internet using their own language? 

>> IRINA DANELIA: Well, I have been there.  The initial idea behind IDN was to let people have the ability to use their own language when search engines are used on the Internet.  This is absolutely important.  Has been gone ‑‑ but from my perspective, what is seen the as the Russian language.  (Person speaking not close enough to microphone to be heard clearly)

.  Secondly, we have many huge research on the Internet using Russian language only.  And these two are not only the main move.  Actually, multiple users search engines and they're quite well when they're addressed.  Also what I see from this ‑‑ their version of the browser (person speaking not close enough to microphone to be heard clearly)

In Russian language.  So it is a surprise edition of the main content and to insert, too.  No matter how (person speaking not close enough to microphone to be heard clearly)
     >> MODERATOR: It is a different experience when you don't feel the request of the search engine or typing the domain name into the address bar, you just type in what you want to find and you get it.

>> IRINA DANELIA: Exactly.

>> MODERATOR: They help achieve this exact goal.  That's an interesting point.  Jonne Soininen.  I would like to ask you, what was the ‑‑ now differently. 

How did you formulate the initial goal of ICANN when you were starting this program?  Was it ‑‑ we will just get different points of view.  One was about user experience.  One was the ability to use the Internet for people that don't know English well.  Another point of view that is shared by many experts, it is a kind of self‑expression because people want to express their expression on the Internet.  What was the initial count when IDN started? 

>> JONNE SOININEN: Thank you very much.  I am part of the IDN working group and part of the board.  I think I cannot completely answer your question because I was not there then when it started.  I think you listed very well the topics came up during the discussion here as well.  We try which are the reasons that IDN exist and the reasons they're still relevant.  Which basically starts with the access to languages, people's home language.  They way enabling people's access to information on the Internet better.  They don't have to learn a different script to browse on the Internet.  One thing is national and linguistic identity, which the person that was discussed about, which is an important aspect as well.  So language is part of your identity as a nation sometimes or as a group.  That is important.  The third one that has been mentioned by Irina and Edmon is practical.  You don't have to change the mode your keyboard is working just to type in Latin script. 

What Edmon used as a good example is when you are speaking something out, I know myself how difficult it is even to get any of these to understand what I say in English, let alone to try to say something that is written in my language, but using this script that is available in the DNA and how to pronounce that.  That is difficult and to get the computer to understand it.  These issues are the ones that are actually driving it.

Linguistic issue of people that don't have access, they don't know another language, the second is the national and linguistic identity.  And the third one is practical.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much.  We have another source person.  This is Sanja Simonova from Macedonia.  You are also welcome to present your perspective on this.

>> SANJA SIMONOVA: Hi, I am representing the national registry.  I want to say the use of the IDN in 2015, it is almost three years from then.  Now we have almost 500 registered in the domain.  Here I'm also to present the perspective of our national register.  Because before I come here, I ask them to just write an e‑mail to say something like what is their view of the domain now and maybe the domain in the future.  So if we have time, I would like to read a short sentence that they at least need to understand here.

>> MODERATOR: It is the group, but you're welcome.  Okay.  While you're searching for them, I believe we have a comment from the audience.  Please represent yourself.

>> QUESTION: Hi, this is Bars Libba.  I work on internationalization and IDN.  I have a question for Edmon.  Hi.  You said ‑‑ well, you implied that there is not a lot of uptake in the CJK land for IDN.  Is that because of one of the following things or something else?  Is it because of lack of interest in registering the domain names?  Is it because of confusion in registering them?  Is it because of difficulty of using them in the application?  Is it because of problems of acceptance of them in the Internet services?  Or is it because of something else? 

>> EDMON CHUNG: Thank you for the question.  That really nails down to what it is.  This is my version of how I see the situation. 

About 18 years ago, we launched IDN in ways that is not fully standardized or accepted.  The first day of registration over a million registrations came in.  And then registrants realized it didn't work.  Simply didn't work at the Internet at that time.  So a lot of them are ‑‑ well, I shouldn't say "a lot."  At least a good chunk were investors.  They came in, didn't get the product they thought they were getting.  Once hurt, they were twice shy.  Then coming along right now, I think two things are important.  Because of that, when you look at the registration's rate today, the different registries ‑‑ the IDN portion represents about 5% to 10% of the registration.  So it doesn't look like a lot for registry.  Neither does it look like a lot for registrars.  The infrastructure is not fully built to accept IDN.  Yes, you can register IDN readily right now and probably handle variance on those things as well.  But when you go to hosting and you have to host online, that becomes a problem.  When you want to do e‑mail, that becomes another problem.  So it has a second‑class citizen kind of feel to IDNs right now.  You have to kind of work around a lot of things to get it to actually work.  So I think right now, the problem is that's why I say that there is a market failure problem, you know, if you just depend on the market, even if end customers are interested they don't know.  They get frustrated when they try to use it.  You can't get it done properly until it will work.  Will it really come?  It is hard to say.

Right now, there are still a lot of challenges in terms of universal acceptance.  We need them ironed out so the IDN upon can be used so if you feel like using English or asking the domain just the same.  Then we can figure out if they want it or not.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Edmon, if you have comments or questions or compliment speakers in any way.  Please represent yourself.

>> QUESTION: My name is Roman from Qatar.  I represent Qatar and Arabic ideas.  Actually, I would like to comment on his latest comment.  That is the same journey we're facing right now.  The first is similarities or variant.  The other is having same (?) In Arabic.  That has very different pronunciation, different meaning in the context, so on.  That is one of the many issues we face every now and again.  How about similarities and variance. 

And then this is not working well in Arabic.  The DNS buying software.  You cannot write down in Arabic script, inside the script itself.  We have to translate it through the IDN converter.  In the search, is it about choosing to use the Arabic script, once it search even in Arabic, they end up with a domain in English scripting.  Same domain you end with the same version. 

We are trying to dress this now and find the solution for it.  More or less, yeah, the same challenge globally.  Thank you. 

>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much.  And another comment, please. 

>> QUESTION: Hi, I'm Shawn from Bangladesh.  We had our IDN last year.  Not seeing that much picking it up, actually.  I heard from Macedonia, they have 500 registered domains already.  Can I get a comparative statement.  I have an IDN, how much (?) In the ratio of that.  To make sure people are taking an interest or are you still far behind.

>> PANELIST: Yeah, most of the registered IDN in Macedonia are used for interaction.  This is not like a primary domain.  And I think that we ‑‑ the idea about e‑mail address on Cyrillic is still for our use.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much.  Sanja Simonova do they have expression about the IDN.  Do you have one? 

>> SANJA SIMONOVA: I do.  The Macedonia language, the official language is based on our script.  The reason they become a register is because they want the Cyrillic domain to be a promotion of our language.  They want to use a Macedonia company, individuals, who use this domain, they also confirm that most of this domain name register by them are used for redirection.  In future, they suggest we work more on promoting of the domain name.  In since I work in MARnet, the promotion of the Cyrillic domain had only chance at the beginning when the domain was introduced and when the first person was (?) Together with the ministry of information society and administration.  And the institute of Macedonian language.  And since then, I cannot witness promotion or to the presence somewhere in the public.  I would also like to add something that maybe Macedonia is a country that is as a national registry should do something about this, so this domain will be more popular, especially for the individual, and maybe why not for Macedonia brand to have their own Cyrillic domain? 

>> MODERATOR: Uh‑huh.  Thank you so much.  I believe this leads us to the next interesting question.  That is IDN domains is popular in some countries but the number of registration is not so big compared to other domains.  What is the most, you know, the main obstacle in the implementation of IDN?  I would like to answer this question, all the stakeholder it is, national registries, Internet dialup schools and international organizations also. 

Let's start from this side.  Sasha ‑‑ maybe it need more marketing reports?  Maybe it is a technical issue?  What is behind this problem? 

>> SASHA: Usually, I will show you, but I will speak now as the former representative of the (?).  (Audio in and out, speaker is not close enough to microphone)
especially since Macedonia is the showcase here.  Most participants aren't using English.  So the need for IDN for a city or school that doesn't use English as the language, it is minor.  Even in chatting through the Internet, our participants are using Latinic script.  It is easier to speak in Macedonian and use a Latin script than to switch on the Macedonian alphabet. 

So in the beginning, we tried really hard to promote the national idea.  As Sanja Simonova mention, we try through the ministries to get the Macedonian language. 

To be honest, I don't believe this number could be bigger in the future, even maybe not in the very beginning, we had the higher number than the number is going down.  I think that is same issue in the old neighboring countries using this IDN Cyrillic. 

Maybe we can do more in promoting IDN in our country.  I don't see it will go up.  Most of the IDN domains that already used all by governmental institutions, which was obliged to register also in Cyrillic domain.

>> PANELIST: Regarding the price, it is for the first year of registration and only five years, every time for renewal.  That price low for domains.  I don't think that is an obstacle for registering domain.  But one of the meetings with the registrars.  One of the proposed solutions for promoting the domain was should the price be lower.  How about lower the price can be? 

>> LIANNA GALSTYAN: I am from the Armenian registry.  We launched it two years ago.  Honestly, it is not going well.  We do not have as many registrations we have expected.  One of the reasons we think is the issue of e‑mail IDN e‑mail.  This is something you cannot market when you sell the IDN themselves.  People, they will use the website link.  If they cannot suggest to customers the IDN e‑mail.  This is a help.  This is the most issues ‑‑ the most challenging things that not work well.  But on that hand, the marketing is really an important thing as well.  And I think that for the Armenian community, it is not that popular, maybe because people do not know that much about it.  So the information awareness raising is one of the issues that we're now trying to reach through some promotions, campaigns that the registry is doing. 

For the price, it doesn't work, even a low price, it is not an obstacle to promote the idea.  People should know about it first, that there is such thing.  And they would like to use it.  For many of the Armenian companies and individuals, they do promote the project in speaking about the business sector, they're working outside of the country.  The market, the people they work is not within the country.  Those that do not know Armenian, there is no use for it.

On the other hand, having an idea in domain is kind of keeping the national identity.  This is something for national heritage to have something in your own language.  This is something we knew and would like to promote more.  For us, it is not a be business campaign.  For us to have the domain name in our language, in our script is a national identity thing.  We do have, but we are working currently on promoting it to a larger diaspora of Armenia.  We have many people in the country around around 8 million outside of the country.  So we would like to make it possible. 

>> MODERATOR: You are still willing tow make it business? 

>> PANELIST: Not actual, because the price not that high.

>> MODERATOR: Answering the question on what is the main obstacle that is involved? 

>> PANELIST: We conducted this survey in our community, that comes from southeastern Europe but also from the neighboring countries.  It is understandable that more than half of respondents think IDN is in the region, we asked if it is important, one‑third answered positively, one‑third answered negatively. 

A lot of people don't know about IDN.  38% of respondents did not hear about IDN.  36% don't know if there are any IDNs registered in the countries.  So probably, you can see that marketing is one of the issues.  Also but another issue is definitely (?) Almost 35% of those who have registered IDNs have faced technical problems and stated that they're not satisfied with the usability of the IDN. 

Also 70% of them see these technical issues as a deterrent.

>> PANELIST: Speak about the main obstacles, what can it mean with the IDN.  We all know domain issue still exist.  I hope one day to resolve, definitely.  What is the main concern, I agree launching IDN is a big network and that is what it is in 2017 when we launched.  We used different marketing tools, marketing channels from online to offline. 

Now we have 14,000 registrations.  This is about 10% of domains (?). 
     >> MODERATOR: Edmon, if we summarize talking about the obstacles, we have one technical with the e‑mails and one of them is the low awareness level.  Do you have benefits for the domain the same in different parts of the world? 

>> EDMON CHUNG: Thank you.  Edmon here again.  I agree, those are exactly the two items.  Technically.  They go hand in hand.  One thing to add, one of the problems with marketing, the more you market IDN, unfortunately some of the registries realize the more customer service they get, because, you know, while hosting is not working, how do I set up e‑mail?  And therefore, the marketing ‑‑ initial marketing excitement turns into a lot of cost and not into a lot of registration.  And therefore, it goes back to the view of in order to assess the two, I hope to spend more time on and to reach out to end developers so they know about the Internet ‑‑ the internationalized domain name on the Internet. 

The second part is, I think in order to break this, in some ways, chicken and egg issue, I think it goes back to market failure.  That is where policy and support can help, if government, for example, permission to get new systems in place, require that there maybe IDN awareness in their systems, even if they are not fully ready, perhaps a roadmap to make it ready, that would be a huge, you know support.

Because right now, I think one of the big issues is that the awareness is not there because people are not willing to spend enough marketing because it is not working as well as it is well English domains.

>> MODERATOR: Edmon, how is it with the e‑mail proper with be solved completely should we wait for another wave of IDN popularity? 

>> EDMON CHUNG: I don't think we should wait.  Now is the time to go out and make sure it is implemented.  The technology is there.  The standard has been there for a few years, actually now.  And it has been tested.  Actually one good thing is that Google e‑mail has the capability, Microsoft has the capability, I think the latest Outlook is supportive of it.  HotMail, look.com.  They're supporting the e‑mail address, internationalization. 

But not all of them turn on the ability for people to register names in it.  They are compatible in that when you send it they will be willing to accept the e‑mail and respond.  Until we turn it on so people can get the name in e‑mail and domain, that doesn't allow the end user to then see it.  The reason they don't turn it on?  Again, comes back to if they turned on, lots of customers calling because other systems don't work yet.

>> MODERATOR: Huh‑uh.  And comment from audience, please? 

>> QUESTION: Barry Libba, another point on AI, as a recipient, if you receive e‑mail as a Chinese address.  You don't understand that address, you don't recognize how to comes from Edmon, it could be anything. 

And also, e‑mail addresses are used for more than e‑mail.  They've long been used as identifiers on the Internet.  And the universal acceptance problem pops up, if you have a Chinese e‑mail address, that may not be accepted in web forms in all the services you use.  That is a barrier. 

>> EDMON CHUNG: Thank you so.

>> LIANNA GALSTYAN: This is Lianna.  That is what I wanted to say.  If you and I register e‑mail, on Gmail, we will be able to exchange e‑mail.  But this is not enough.  There are proximal frustrations once we realize that they use the e‑mail as universal identifier.  You cannot get rid of it.  (?) And this will actually require much more effort to get in with an enormous amount of software developer all over the world and explain to them and convince them to support the features in the product.  And this is the most challenging part of the marketing of the IDN at the moment.  Not only the end user, but to the engineers and software developers. 

>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much.  Very interesting points.  I should add that while preparing for the session, I contacted some vendors and collected some statements that I think would be very interesting to present.  But before that, I want to finish with these questions and ask the ICANN representative, what his opinion is the main obstacles in the IDN implementation, please. 

>> JONNE SOININEN: Thank you, the main obstacle I see is the universal acceptance.  Like what we discussed here, when you give more information about IDN, so on, you hit the universal acceptance problems much harder.  And you also have the possibility that you alienate people who try it in the first time when it is not there.  The universal acceptance problem is really a difficult problem because it is just not convincing ‑‑ well, it is not just convincing Google or convincing Microsoft or Apple.  You are convincing some person that doesn't know really what even a domain name is that has done a script or just checks on his website or her website that is the ‑‑ that does something look like an e‑mail address or does something look like a web address.  That person's script just doesn't support that.  That is not a person that you will necessarily reach through the normal channels that you reach the big companies or very advanced developers. 

So that makes it very difficult here.  And of course, the issue of universal acceptance is a question of synchronizing and the whole industry at the same time behind the technology.  I think that an analogy of this is really what we have had with (?).  Like Edmon has been saying, the IDNs come in five years.
I say it comes next year.  I am sure it comes next year.  Not a problem.  The thing is in a naive and childlike manner we had optimism when we started with it.  This is not very difficult.  I'm like it is a little longer address, couple of different changes and new routers will have it.  And Microsoft will support it, so on.  What we didn't understand is the long tail of things that have to change.  And especially difficult became the customer premises equipment.  Your home routers, which are not done by big company that participates in IDN participation.  It is from small company to downloads and uses open source software and use that.  That is the similar thing we have with several acceptance in DNS, that basically, you have ‑‑ it is a hard time to reach these people, though that for everybody, it seems like a no‑brainer, somewhere we have to move to, but really synchronizing everybody in this chain, make it work it is really hard.  On the marketing as well, I think that cost end users need basically also knowledge about this.  That they ‑‑ they start to basically trust these. 

This is anecdote.  I'm Finnish.  We don't have different script, but we have different letters not in the Latin alphabet.  The A with dots and O with dots, we use a lot, but not available in ANS.  We have trained people that those do not exist on the Internet.  Now they exist, they're a possibility.  A friend of mine noticed that a smaller shop was not using them and still using the Latin characters and asked them, why are you doing this? 

And why they are using this ‑‑ why they're not using it in the radio promotion that they were doing.  The shop said, well, like none of the users would know what we're talking about if we all of a sudden say with this Finish characters, this is the web address, they would type it in without the special characters because they're so used to that.  So retraining people that they actually can use their native script or language is also a problem I think in, this.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much.  I have another participants.  This is Jennifer from DotAsia.  Do you have anything to say? 

>> JENNIFER CHUNG: Thank you so much.  I'm Jennifer Chung from DotAsia.  I do agree very much with all the statements our colleagues said previously.  It is a really big problem, particularly not even just for individuals who don't type in Latin script or ASCII.  It is a lot of people in the Asia Pacific where they don't know the language, they can't use this.  And there is the small, medium businesses and enterprises.  They don't see the value of creating the presence online in their own language if they can't interact with the clients and customers in those languages.  I see Edmon and others have talked about universal acceptance.  And others have talked about how difficult it is to synchronize across industry.  You need the coders, app developers, website browsers and people that make the (?) The government for that.  I know ICANN has really put a lot of resource and support behind this acceptance.  I want to bring the point that universal acceptance hearing group is really trying to do a lot of local initiatives, DotAsia is trying to really start a lot of local initiatives to raise awareness in the actual localities people need to know that this can be done, how this can be done, what there is to be done, you know, there is a lot to be done.  (?)

>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much.  And there was very good point about the collaboration with vendors, with the Internet business and with the problem ‑‑ technical problems with the implementation. 

As I said before, while preparing for the session, I contacted the vendors, one of them is Yander, it is a popular search engine and e‑mail service.  As Edmon say before there are technical solutions for IDN e‑mails that work.  I ask them, why don't you implement it.  Why don't you want to make Cyrillic e‑mails, for example.
The answer was the first commercial company will implement all the new technology will use all the users' negative reaction no matter if it their fault something is working or not. 

I would like to ask our panelist and our audience, do they agree with that?  The second question is, what should we do with it?  How could we convince vendors and Internet to have new technical solution.  (?) We will start from Sasha. 

>> PANELIST: The pioneers will pay the most cost on that.  That is quite clear.  Something we have seen in the other technologies as well.  The first mover will pay a bigger cost than the ones that come to the table late.  That's for sure.  Therefore the first movers need to see a benefit to themselves.  On my side, there was a vendor doing customer premises equipment again that automatically put version 6 on and created a tunnel over IP version 4 and you have IP version 6 in your home automatically out of the box.

This was represented in the newspapers that that company is putting people in harm's way because it didn't have exactly the same ‑‑ it didn't have a network address translator, which was considered a security function, saying basically this company is putting ‑‑ all their customer's homes online without asking them.  It was a very nice gesture from the company.  They were trying to be pioneers, but it backfired very badly.  So I'm pretty sure that there is ‑‑ this issue is true.  And those companies that move first or people that move first need to see an advantage by themselves in that cost.

>> MODERATOR: But what should we do with it? 

>> PANELIST: Not trying to break the microphone.  There is very little we can do.  Like, I think that the thing is, basically, those companies should understand what is the benefit?  That is something that has to be explained.  And this is the benefits that we have discussed.  It is getting the next billing people, using their services, accessing their services.  Those companies have to actually see that themselves and be able to do the business case for that.  I think it was Diana or somebody who said that basically ‑‑ no, sorry.  Somebody else said that basically the problem is that you don't just talk with technical people, you have to talk with the CEO, CPO and worst of all the CFO of the companies and get them to understand that.  That is the difficulty, you have to create the demand before you have something.  You explain to the CEO that you are actually losing money because you are not doing this, who will then tell the CFO, yes, the investment is fine and the CEO can do that.  It is a chicken and egg problem.  I would assume that this is actually moving ahead.  And I share the optimism that Edmon has, that though it is taking a long time, there are clear steps of progress.  It is just what we anticipate.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much.  Anyone else? 

>> EDMON CHUNG: This is precisely what I was saying earlier on, the chicken and egg issue and the market failure.  When the participants are interested in rolling out, they're afraid of the customer support issue.

So in terms of solution for that, you know, I think it is very difficult but I think this particular idea I have been, you know, nursing for some time.  I don't think we're ready for it yet.  In a couple of years when we get more people to be ready, we should have like an IDN day.  Everyone turn its on the same time.  You know, if we get everyone to turn on the same time, you know, everybody gets a bit of the customer service issue they get.  It was quite the vessel with IPC6, there was an example there.

Before we go there, the reason I think we're not fully ready yet, we need to get companies to be ready.  Even if you don't turn on some of the stuff, get your systems ready.  In order for us to have the IDN day, we'll need them to get them to be ready.  And one of the things that, you know, in the recent year or so I have been waving around ‑‑ some think I'm crazy, that it will never work ‑‑ we need to go to the schools, the universities when they first learn DNS and PC.  We're need to teach them about it.  If we do that, make sure the 101 courses have it in place.  Five years from now, the generation that comes in, they will all know there is IDN and IPN.  It is not another iteration of learning.

One of the things is, one side is get the ground swell of readiness there.  And the other thing, I think in three, four years, let's try to move for an IDN day.  I think that might get the ‑‑ get us over the hump?

>> PANELIST: If I may, agreeing with Edmon, not only that people think he's crazy, but agreeing on the thing where people think he's crazy.  It is actually something that you will teach the next generation of coders in the universities and the schools of that sort.  If you think about what they have as material now that the was illustrated, that say only ASCII is allowed and this is how they move it forward.  That is how they learn.  The thing is that basically, that has to change for the next generation of coders to take this.  I think you are absolutely right there.  The other thing about the readiness day, IDN day, actually, I completely agree with you.  The IP version 6 day worked well.  Though it sounds really silly.  You go like, if you can't turn it on, why don't you just?  There is nothing that effective as peer pressure.  And shaming. 

The thing is that basically when you get people together, first of all, to get ready for that, they usually have to change information on how did you do that in your organization?  How did you get ready?  Can I use that same methodology to use in my country or institution or whatever?  And the other thing is that basically the thing is that they think oh, there are other people that are interested in this and think it is important.  Not only that me who is crazy and nobody listens to me anymore.  The thing is that when you see your competitors with something, usually you do the same thing.  One thing I wanted to ask, act version 6, do we have all the tools?  To try, does your code work?  We called it a certification program.  But it was actually a self‑kind of pressing thing.  Have you thought ‑‑ I mean, like in this ‑‑ it is not as simple.  Because IP version 6 was very simple protocol to pass.  Whereas, you don't have just a project to do that.

But have you thought about checklists or something like that, where you can say, check if your service or some sort of service, if that is compatible? 

>> EDMON CHUNG: Edmon here, yes, that is what has been done in the SPS for the last several years, to accept, validate, store, display, process it properly.  And in spanning out, we have a set of tool kit actually modeled around that belief and ability to access the web.  It is a suite of tools rather than being slightly more straightforward. 

But it is a suite of tools that are being tested right now.  So I invite everyone to come participate at the UASG.  One iteration is already done, to check, basically, the UA readiness of a site or of a system.  And the ICANN work actually at ICANN with Ashlyn and his team within the ICANN corporation and ICANN network, that is also trying to use some of the tools to see if they work well.

So it is not complete yet, but yes, we are building a set of tools so any site can try to use it and check where the noncompliance or where the readiness needs to be. 
>> MODERATOR: We have a remote question.  I have much more trouble with them, too.  We will ... we will finish with this question and then we'll move to the remote one.  (?) Jennifer, first, go, please.

>> JENNIFER CHUNG: Thank you.  Adding on what Edmon said, to go to the website to see the tool kits.  It is USGA tool kits.  There is support and readiness there.  It is really information available for anywhere from coders to those that don't understand what universal acceptance is.  It is a primer and introduction.  I wanted to add more to what Edmon was saying.

>> MODERATOR: Uh‑huh.  Thank you so much.  Irina.

>> IRINA DANELIA: Wow, this is Irina.  I fully agree that education is important.  We have agreed that at the moment.  That international accept is not commercially reasonable for big company.  Therefore, we don't see enough market for the idea and compliance.  So from the business, from the national perspective.  So they really need to see other benefits for doing this.  Since we're here for the Internet governance work, where different other stakeholders are here, struggling up to society and government to find the additional incentives for the commercial companies to work on these.  None of the big companies can even say that they don't take care of the colleague.

This is important.  And any big company has to demonstrate that they care about this.  So something like this should happen with the IDN because we ‑‑ if we agree that this is not only about technical, this is about the national identity and the ability for ‑‑ of the people for the sheet to be and present as in it own language and for that we would be able to find more benefit for the business.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much.  Very interesting point.  We can speak about IDN in terms of social responsibilities. 

We have some remote questions.  So I think it is exact time to ask them to our panelists and our audience. 

>> ALEKSANDAR ICOKAEV: We do have a remote question.  Anyone want to take it. 

>> MODERATOR: I see.  It is a really technical one.  Anyone want to answer it? 

>> PANELIST: The question is you change from ASCII to unicode in DNS?  I mean, like, that is what IDNs kind of are.  That is the point.  It is really that ‑‑ though it took a long time to define the standards that specify this, that is the easy part.  Getting that deployed is the changing point.  To get DNS to accept unicode is what we're doing now. 

>> MODERATOR: To have a comment from the audience, please?  Please turn on the mic. 

>> QUESTION: Hello.  My name is Stephan couture.  Thank you to the last speaker that mentioned the government.  Nobody mentioned the government before.  There was no mention about policing in your presentation.  I'm a bit surprised, with the Russian and Chinese government decide to stop using Latin, it will put pressure on surprises to move to international domain name.  I said if this is considered will there be police lobbying done on this?  Or is it just about market? 

>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much.  That is a very interesting point of view.  I'm not ‑‑ I am pretty sure the Internet is all about good will, that it should not be developed by some kind of restrictions.  For example, I don't think that, for example, as you mentioned, Chinese government ‑‑ stop using ‑‑ works.

>> QUESTION: Well, my question still is, is there anything done about policy?  That was my question.  Again, like, there is always exclusion.  We're talking about the connecting the next billion.  So I assume they are excluded already? 

>> MODERATOR: Oh, yeah.  Okay.  Got it.

>> IRINA DANELIA: This is Irina.  (?) The Russian government.  It was the launch of IBM ‑‑ IDN was mentioned by high‑level official.  They help with exercising promotion at the first stage.  At the same time, I definitely applaud and support if there would be not the political decision for the whole country, but the decision that the government should internally use this, for example, all the officials have the IDN.  Yes, I would definitely support.

>> MODERATOR: Edmon? 

>> EDMON CHUNG: Edmon here again.  As I mention, I think there is a market failure.  Market failure can only be addressed by policy. 

In the past little while, I have been pushing this idea, however it hasn't been in the UASG, it hasn't been seen as a top priority, although we are doing some work.  In terms of how we do it is, like procurement policies.  Right?  The next time you buy an IP system for the government, they should, you know, the system's integrator should tell you whether they are IDN compliant and whether they are ‑‑ you know, what the roadmap is.  That is actually done at ICANN already.  I think part of the universal work, in the contract with the I.T. solutions they have added the requirement to tell us what you will do about IDN universal acceptance.  I think that is a big step forward.  I am hopeful some of the governments will try to do that.  We are advocating to some government.  I know the Chinese government is looking into this specifically.  So in future I.T. procurement, they would be looking for this kind of thing.  I know in Thailand, they are also doing similar thing, especially in terms of giving all the Thai officials a Thai e‑mail address.  They're hitting a little bit of the same issue.  Getting the customer support issues and little bit shy after the first enthusiastic push.  But I think that that is still the right approach.

If you are ‑‑ again, if you ‑‑ we need more support from the community around the world.  Please come and participate at the UASG.  Yes, I think governments need to be part of the program.  SDGs might be ‑‑ we were talking about an environment program.  The sustainable development goals do have particular parts about the infrastructure and supporting the heritage, culture language, that sort of thing.  The part of the SDG index that the governments need to report, then maybe we can see even more movement in that. 

>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much.  We have a few minutes before the session ending.  I would like to make it in a positive way.

So I would like to ask every panelist, maybe some from the audience to bring the evidence that IDN is still alive, it works good.  To make an example ‑‑ to bring an example of the IDN name that they think to be one of the ‑‑ to be pretty successful and to bring a very short, very brief description of what the web source is about.  I think Lianna and others can participate.  We will start with you. 

>> LIANNA GALSTYAN: If it is successful.  I think using the script in one particular name cannot be done in Latin script is one much the projects that we could have.  I would not name that domain name, but in Latin script, it is up to use that.

>> MODERATOR: It is good.

>> LIANNA GALSTYAN: That would look like what Edmon described.  I will not do that.  There is a big difference between the Latin script and Armenian script.  In order to use our letters, we are using three our four in Latin script. 

>> MODERATOR: Alena? 

>> PANELIST: Every Macedonia friend, singer, product or something should have a Cyrillic domain.

>> MODERATOR: Is a successful example of the Macedonia domain that exist? 

>> PANELIST: Before I come here, I translated the domains, I looked in the database.  I was searching the domain names, I noted most of them are actually a name of a school or municipality.  (Speaking non‑English language) I said this is a new search for searching a job.  So on.  And I typed that and it was actually the home page of one of our registers.  It was used as a redirection to go to the home page.

>> MODERATOR: I see.  Thank you.  Sasha? 

>> SASHA: I will say again, I mention in the beginning, we start a good corporation where we have our national institute for Macedonia language.  That is one bright side of this IDN story.  It continues through the year and regarding some special domain name state.

>> MODERATOR: Your example? 

>> PANELIST: I don't have an example, unfortunately.  I can say IDN are important.  We should promote them.  They're important for protecting the culture, but promoting the culture, local languages and encourage the governments to promote them. 

>> MODERATOR: Uh‑huh.  What is your knowledge to be one of the most successful? 

>> By now we see more and more projects inside.  As for me, I'm proud that our government is going also online.  They find it useful ‑‑ not social, but general project.  Like (speaking non‑English language).  The idea of the sites is to share the accidents on roads.  And this project definitely work.  And they both are in the zone. 

>> PANELIST: That is a good question.  I don't.  There are scripts I cannot read and languages I cannot pronounce.  But it is actually ‑‑ the funny part aside.  I noticed that recently in engine searches and so on, and also in other media, you start to see them more, you start to see them more definitely than you did five years ago.  I think what I have seen more is especially Arabic and Chinese.  And basically, because of my restrictive language skills in those scripts, it is hard for me to tell what those were.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you.  Edmon, what is your favorite about the domain? 

>> EDMON CHUNG: It is about a big hairy crab.  It is seasonal in place and everyone likes to buy it from that.  What is interesting about that, and what I like about it, it is not a full website.  It redirects to their Facebook page.  I think we need to rethink the use of domain name sometimes.  Of course, it is great to be used to help spark the usage.  And marketing guys can get it set up so end users are aware there is that possibility.  Don't belittle redirection.  I think that is the reason why I like this particular one.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much ir ‑‑ Irina, what is the main point that you think is successful? 

>> IRINA DANELIA: I am happy to see government official using IDN name.  But I am happy to have real businesses who are not business projects are using the IDN.  (Person speaking is not close enough to microphone to be heard)
One of my best offices is how (?). 

>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Jennifer?  Yes, we have a question from the audience, please.

>> QUESTION: Barry Libba.  Question about what Edmon said.  Related to you send me e‑mail and I don't recognize the text of the e‑mail address.  The other way around with readdresses, if something is redirected to the Latin script, are they not confused by looking at browser and seeing script they don't recognize in the address box?  

>> EDMON CHUNG: It is up to the person that set it up.  My point is redirection is not evil or anything.  That particular site redirects to Facebook page.  But it is all in Chinese.  So it doesn't have that problem.  I think what you mentioned ‑‑

>> QUESTION: The fact that a body of the page is in the language, they expect that it overrides in the address bar isn't.  Is that what you are saying? 

>> (Off microphone)
     >> QUESTION: But it is redirected to something dot‑Facebook.

>> EDMON CHUNG: If you look at the Facebook profile, it actually shows the IDN domain as well. 

>> MODERATOR: Okay.  Yes, we have another one come in. 

>> QUESTION: Sorry to interrupt you again.  One of the things that help on the global acceptance.  Maybe the ICANN guy can help me out.  With the Cyrillic services, maybe we can have ‑‑ in that way, we have the domain name.  For example, IDN format.  And have in the same.  You didn't scroll it down.  Maybe the ICANN can help with that.  Maybe.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much.  I think we are moving toward the end of the discussion.  I think we have a very different discussion because we attached the idea from almost every perspective.  We mentioned the businesses, the governments, the marketing, the technical solutions.  So I would like to thank panelists ‑‑ oh, we have another one come in, right? 

Oh, I see.  I would like to thank panelists for participating and thank all of you for being here.  So much. 

>> PANELIST: Just to wrap up, I would like to say ‑‑ I don't know if you ‑‑ sorry for being late.  This is a collaborative session.  It is joint work of Russian IGF, Macedonia IGF and SEEDIG.  And I would like to thank the organizers for this joint thing.  This is fruitful for us and good exercise for the years to come. 

>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Diana. 
     (Session concluded 1:30 p.m. CET)