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Understanding Character Variants |
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Character Variant Issues
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Character Variant Issues
The majority of domain name registrants register
domain names that have meaning for them in their language - the domain
name may be a name, word or phrase. These words or phrases have meaning
in the registrant's language. Yet, the domain name may have different
meanings in the context of other languages or cultures.
The domain name registration process was designed
without consideration of language context. Technically speaking, the
registrant registers a domain name using a set of characters within
a script. Since scripts may be used by more than one language, the domain
name is not registered in a specific language - it is registered in
a specific script or combination of scripts. For example, the Latin
script is used by many languages including English, French and German.
A domain name registered using the Latin script could have meaning for
several languages.
The overlap between scripts and languages define
the variant issue. The Internationalized
Domain Name (IDN) in Applications (IDNA) protocol enables
the translation of all Unicode code points into unique ASCII strings.
This broader range of characters has the potential to cause end-user
confusion due to characters with similar appearances or interpretations,
also known as variants. To reduce confusion and improve the end-user
experience, it is necessary to address the variant issue.
While there are different
types of variants, VeriSign is focusing on character variants.
Character variants are not covered by the recently released IDN-related
Requests for Comment (RFCs) as local scripts and languages
drive them. Communities throughout the world, especially in Asia-Pacific,
have asked Top-Level Domain (TLD) registries to address character variant
issues in their domain spaces to ensure a positive end-user experience.
VeriSign is implementing its Character
Variant Solution to help improve the end-user experience.
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