[Some readers don't have UTF-8 MUAs yet, so I'll use ``q'' in this message to mean a lowercase Greek alpha.]
A web search immediately reveals several organizations with ``Alpha Online'' in their names: Alpha Online Berlin, Alpha Online Power, JN Alpha Online, etc. Presumably one of these organizations will want to register and use qol.com. Yes or no: Will they be allowed to do so? Under trademark law, cybersquatting law, etc., there is probably no conflict between qol.com and aol.com, but there is obviously a conflict between the uppercase versions of the same names, because those uppercase versions use the same glyphs: AOL.COM. The current IDN proposals insist on tying the lowercase and uppercase versions together. Does this mean that qol.com won't be allowed? We can avoid this problem. As I said before, the careful approach to IDNs is to start with (1) case-sensitive IDNs in which (2) uppercase non-ASCII letters are prohibited by the registries. If case-insensitivity turns out to be a good idea, we can add it later, because of #2. Otherwise, we can avoid case-insensitivity problems, and skip a horribly complicated part of IDN implementation, because of #1. These observations are not new. They've been brought up repeatedly. The only counterargument is speculation that users won't be able to adapt to case-sensitive names---even though URLs are already case-sensitive! To summarize: These proposals impose huge software costs and guarantee mass confusion among domain names having the same glyphs, because the proponents think users are too stupid to handle case-sensitive names. Furthermore, the proponents insist on cementing this decision now, rather than taking a careful approach that defers the commitment. I continue to be amazed at the carelessness of the IDNA proponents. Apparently they don't even listen when their ``internationalization'' proposals receive incredibly strong objections from the users most affected by the proposals. IDNA would never have reached ``last call'' stage in a legitimate standards organization. ---Dan
