ccNSO wants Internationalised Domains

The Working Group (WG) set up to review the activities of the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO), an offshoot of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has submitted its report, calling for inclusion of Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) country code Top Level Domains (ccTLD) in its fold.

The Country Code Names Supporting Organisation (ccNSO) is a body within the ICANN structure created for and by ccTLD managers since 2003.

The report made available to ITRealms Online at the weekend, the Working Group ccNSO said it’s ready for such changes, of which already forms part of its core work currently.

Also, the Working Group said the inclusion of IDN in its fold is essential, just as such work does not affect adversely the implementation of proposals for operational change.

In May 2009 the Board of ICANN approved the composition of the ccNSO Review WG, which includes Jean Jacques Subrenat as chairperson; Ram Mohan, Demi Getschko, Alejandro Pisanty and Vittorio Bertola as members while supports were received from Marco Lorenzoni, ICANN’s Director for Organizational Reviews, Olof Nordling, ICANN’s Director Services Relations and Bart Boswinkel, ICANN Senior Policy Advisor for the ccNSO.

Following an open selection procedure, the Board of ICANN appointed ITEMS International to undertake the independent, external review of the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO).

The independent reviewers started their work in November 2009, released a survey and presented an overview of the survey results in January 2010.

The final version of the independent reviewers report was released in June 2010 and posted for public comments, originally until 30 July 2010.

Also, the independent reviewers’ report was presented at the June 2010 ICANN meeting in Brussels, in order to obtain feedback from the ccNSO and the wider community.

The final report was shortly thereafter completed with an addendum from the reviewers and the public comment period was extended from 30 July to 15 September 2010.

The initial comments to the report expressed at the ICANN meeting in Brussels were further elaborated comprising seven written comments, all from the ccTLD community.

The WG took this input into consideration during its deliberations and concluded with advice on how to modify the recommendations, where justified.

The Working Group recommended consideration for the translation into the main United Nations (UN) languages of key documents concerning and produced by the ccNSO.

These documents, the report outlined to include bylaws, the Rules and Guidelines document, major policy papers of a brief summary of ccNSO position paper.

The further recognized that it is an objective within ICANN to have essential documentation available in the main UN languages, the WG views this recommendation in a positive light.

However, they maintained that such an objective cannot be open-ended without regard for the budgetary context and there is a need to carefully consider the costs in relation to the potential benefits for translations in each individual case.

Such assessments, the Report said, are best undertaken by the relevant community and the WG leaves this for the ccNSO community’s consideration and resolve for each detailed suggestion put forward.

The WG also refers to its conclusions regarding the closely related recommendation, noting that comments received do not express overall support for recommendation, but some call for limiting translations to only core documents and some state that financing of translations should be resolved first, before undertaking any translations.

“The WG also notes the resolve by the ccNSO to consider translation of key documents, provided a cost effective methodology can be found,” part of the report read.

Remmy Nweke:
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