Summary of Current Status from Rudi Vansnick, 17 April 2014

1. What is contact information & What Taxonomies are Available?

2. Why are we doing this? Is this particular feature necessary?

3. Who gets access to what information?

4 Who are the Stakeholders - Who is Affected and What do They Want 

5 How Much Would a Particular Feature Cost and How to Weigh the Costs Versus the Benefits

6 When Would Policy Come into Effect

7 What Should be Mandatory

8. Verification and validation

Main questions (from the charter)

1. Whether it is desirable to translate contact information to a single common language or transliterate contact information to a single common script.
2. Who should decide who should bear the burden [of] translating contact information to a single common language or transliterating contact information to a single common script.

Other questions (in the charter)

• What exactly the benefits to the community are of translating and/or transliterating contact data, especially in light of the costs that may be connected to translation and or transliteration?
• Should translation and/or transliteration of contact data be mandatory for all gTLDs?
• Should translation and/or transliteration of contact data be mandatory for all registrants or only those based in certain countries and/or using specific non-ASCII scripts?
• What impact will translation/transliteration of contact data have on the WHOIS validation as set out under the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement?
• When should any new policy relating to translation and transliteration of contact information come into effect?

Questions from the Expert Working Group to Define Requirements for Internationalized Registration Data and Corresponding Data Model for gTLD Registries See: http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-08jul13-en.htm. 10 April 2014: Interim Report (Page 17)

The WG did note the following issues related to translation and transliteration and recommend the GNSO PDP to consider:

1. If registrants are allowed to submit localized registration data, what languages or scripts are registrars or registry operators expected to support?
2. If registrants are allowed to submit internationalized registration data, whether to require that users submit a corresponding single common script version of the internationalized registration data?
3. If registrants are required to submit a single common script version of the internationalized registration data, are users expected to submit a translated version, a transliterated version, or “either” (provided there is a convention or method to distinguish between the two)?
4. If registrants are required to submit a single common script version of the internationalized registration data and the user is unfamiliar with or unable to submit such a transformation, are registrars or registry operators expected to provide assistance (and if so, how would such assistance be manifested)?
5. If registrants are required to submit a single common script version and an internationalized version of their registration data, should there be a requirement to detect whether both literally match each other?
6. If there are two versions of the registration data, which version should be considered primary or authoritative if there is a mismatch?
7. If translated / transliterated versions of the data are required, how will data be maintained simultaneously in multiple languages/scripts? Should there be additional meta-level information?
8. For company and individual names, should translation or transliteration be required?