RE: [idn] universal typability

["HIBBS, BARR (SBCSI)" <RBHIBBS@msg.pacbell.com>]

> From: 	Karlsson Kent - keka[SMTP:keka@im.se]
> Sent: 	Wednesday, March 15, 2000 8:51 AM
> 
> 
> > Again I was thinking globally.  In a few years a 100 million mobile 
> > phones in Europe (most without full keyboards) will be able to access 
> > Asian sites, but won't have Asian fonts and input methods installed. 
> > (Hell, current mobiles here don't even have decent European fonts and 
> > input methods yet.) 
> 
> If you cannot read the Chinese served up, you might not be too 
> interested in inputting a Chinese URL... 
> 
...true, but you might wish to browse for intellectual curiosity, and a
cumbersome input method would make that impossible.

> > Instead of entering ideogram.jp, nonAsians may go for 
> > verysimilar-ideogram.jp which may be run by hostiles.  Like eoke.com 
> > spoofing traffic from coke.com. 
> 
> Yes, but I don't see how this WG could solve that in general. 
> 
...no.  Doesn't everyone by now know of the porno site  www.whitehouse.com?
Contrasted to the official web site of www.whitehouse.gov.  There is simply
no way to prevent this sort of thing, despite the hordes of patent and
trademark lawyers trying their darnedest to trademark common words.
 
> > Example: 
> > User types in www.gås.net 
...this, of course, presumes that the user has an input method that permits
the correct encoding to be economically entered [either an exact single key
for the accented vowel, or a simple multiple keystroke combination to
produce it]

> > or www.g%c3%a5s.net (or even 
> > www.gc--3a--5s.net) 
...human nature being what it is, I doubt either of these approaches would
be welcomed by most users because it violates the principle of economical
key entry

> > The (free) transliteration could also be entered by the surfer: 
> > www.gaas.net 
> 
> User might reluctantly type that.  (B.t.w. 'gås' means 'goos', 
> while 'gaas' means 'gaas'.) 
> 
...suppose that the user has available a browser that can correctly display
the language of the web site and is sufficiently fluent at reading the
language that the content and presentation are not an issue.  If an
ASCII-ized URL name is registered by the site owner, why would a user be
reluctant to use it?  For example, look at www.ntt.com.  "NTT" is the
established corporate identity of Nippon Denshin Denwa, and although the
Latin alphabet certainly does not convey the same meaning as do the kanji
for the name, NTT is certainly well-understood to a wide audience.

...this is not something that I think the WG can resolve, and while I agree
that it places a burden on site administrators, it certainly seems no more
onerous than Coca-Cola having to submit their trademarked names to
governments of every country in which they wish to do business for
registration.

--Barr