Subject: [idn] Alpha Online

From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: 6 Feb 2002 00:25:00 -0000

[Some readers don't have UTF-8 MUAs yet, so I'll use ``q'' in this
message to mean a lowercase Greek alpha.]

A web search immediately reveals several organizations with ``Alpha
Online'' in their names: Alpha Online Berlin, Alpha Online Power, JN
Alpha Online, etc.

Presumably one of these organizations will want to register and use
qol.com. Yes or no: Will they be allowed to do so?

Under trademark law, cybersquatting law, etc., there is probably no
conflict between qol.com and aol.com, but there is obviously a conflict
between the uppercase versions of the same names, because those
uppercase versions use the same glyphs: AOL.COM.

The current IDN proposals insist on tying the lowercase and uppercase
versions together. Does this mean that qol.com won't be allowed?

We can avoid this problem. As I said before, the careful approach to
IDNs is to start with

   (1) case-sensitive IDNs in which
   (2) uppercase non-ASCII letters are prohibited by the registries.

If case-insensitivity turns out to be a good idea, we can add it later,
because of #2. Otherwise, we can avoid case-insensitivity problems, and
skip a horribly complicated part of IDN implementation, because of #1.

These observations are not new. They've been brought up repeatedly. The
only counterargument is speculation that users won't be able to adapt to
case-sensitive names---even though URLs are already case-sensitive!

To summarize: These proposals impose huge software costs and guarantee
mass confusion among domain names having the same glyphs, because the
proponents think users are too stupid to handle case-sensitive names.
Furthermore, the proponents insist on cementing this decision now,
rather than taking a careful approach that defers the commitment.

I continue to be amazed at the carelessness of the IDNA proponents.
Apparently they don't even listen when their ``internationalization''
proposals receive incredibly strong objections from the users most
affected by the proposals. IDNA would never have reached ``last call''
stage in a legitimate standards organization.

---Dan

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2002 18:28:50 -0800

>uppercase versions use the same glyphs: AOL.COM.

 From one jurisdiction to the next, trademark law is complicated enough and 
variable enough to strongly suggest that predictions about trademark 
disputes are best left to experienced trademark attorneys.  Those of us on 
this list are dabblers in the law and our opinions about outcomes do not 
have much basis.

>I continue to be amazed at the carelessness of the IDNA proponents.

Some of us continue to be amazed at the constant hyperbole and ad hominem 
disparagement offered by others.

All that is achieved by this high emotion is low counter-productivity.

d/
----------

Dave Crocker  <mailto:[email-masked]>
Brandenburg InternetWorking  <http://www.brandenburg.com>
tel +1.408.246.8253;  fax +1.408.273.6464

---

From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: 6 Feb 2002 23:28:18 -0000

The question remains: Will an Alpha Online organization be allowed to
register qol.com, with q changed to a lowercase alpha?

Or will ICANN take the domain name away and give it to AOL, because the
uppercase version of the name is visually identical to AOL.COM? Is it
okay if Alpha Online never uses the uppercase version of the name, and
client software doesn't automatically convert names to uppercase?

The question is whether case insensitivity will---beyond imposing huge
software costs and creating huge new opportunities for fraud---prevent
legitimate users from registering perfectly reasonable domain names.

Dave Crocker writes:
> predictions about trademark disputes are best left to experienced
> trademark attorneys.

I will readily agree that the exact definition of ``likelihood of
confusion'' in trademark law is beyond your legal experience. However,
I'm sure you can grasp the fact that the picture

   AOL.COM

has a conflict with the identical picture

   AOL.COM

even though one of the A's is represented inside a computer as the Latin
A while the other one is represented as the Greek Alpha.

---Dan

---

From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 17:20:22 -0800

>register qol.com, with q changed to a lowercase alpha?

If you have a question for ICANN, you should address it to ICANN. 
Asking a question like this in the IETF is pretty useless.

>legitimate users from registering perfectly reasonable domain names.

If the case-matching table we have would impose "huge" software 
costs, what will the software costs be for a table that will probably 
be an order of magnitude larger? That is a rhetorical question, of 
course; correctly making a list of look-alike characters is 
essentially impossible. But I am interested in how much bigger than 
"huge" your proposal would cost.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium