DotAsia will release draft IDN launch policies in December 2009 and invite industry experts and users to provide input in an open process. Policies will be finalized in March 2010 after the APRICOT conference in Kuala Lumpur. Policies to be developed include Sunrise and Landrush provisions to balance intellectual property rights holders concerns and public interests. As a reference, DotAsia will look to learn from its previous successful Sunrise and Landrush processes: http://www.dot.asia/policies/DotAsia-Sunrise-Policies--COMPLETE-2007-08-10.pdf. Furthermore, whether existing registrants of (alphanumeric) ".Asia" domains should or should not have a priority to register their corresponding IDN will be considered. This is especially relevant for Romanized or transliterated names.
Please feel free to send us your ideas and comments to idn [@] registry.asia or leave a comment on this entry.
Please feel free to send us your ideas and comments to idn [@] registry.asia or leave a comment on this entry.
It is of paramount importance that current owners of initial-release alphanumeric (roman) .ASIA domains receive absolute priority to register IDN versions of their respective domains.
Anything else would be a complete betrayal of those individuals who supported .ASIA in the beginning.
If they are not given a priority option to register the IDN versions of their domains, then the value and usefulness of their current domains will be greatly diluted.
In some ways this is similar to a company who issues new shares: generally the existing shareholders receive preferred options to buy new shares.
If the company issues too many new shares and causes the value of current shares to drop, then it can be held legally liable by current shareholders for the loss of value to their shares.
And while the .ASIA Registry is not itself a shareholder company, similar principles can be applied.
I hope you will make the correct decisions and will not ignore the valid concerns and rights of your current domain holders. Not doing so will likely result in legal challenges and possible class action suits.