Mozilla Implements TLD Whitelist for Firefox in Response to IDN Homographs Spoofing

Thu Jul 28 22:10:50 UTC 2005

John Levine wrote:

>>>Homographs are a classical example of a PR attack.  It's a complete
>>>non-issue.
>>>      
>>>
>
>I am inclined to agree.
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>>But since the TLD registry operators can, and do, control the delegation 
>>of their TLDs, they have de-facto control over the sets of labels that 
>>can be used for second-level domain labels that are publically visible 
>>within their TLD domains
>>    
>>
>
>Indeed.  The actual problem is that ICANN has been captured by the
>trademark community (WIPO, basically) and has internalized two bad
>ideas, that domains are like trademarks, and it is ICANN's job to
>protect them.  Once the registrars and registries realized that this
>meant a thousand first-day registrations in a new domain (you may be
>sure that disney.xxx has been presold), there hasn't been any serious
>opposition so there are continuing inane arguments about how to
>prevent 2LD homographs, even as everyone agrees that it's impossible.
>
>Mozilla's approach strikes me as the least bad way to appease the
>trademark crazies without interfering too badly with useful work.  I
>will be interested to see what they do when a cctld declares that
>their policy is that they permit any name.
>
>R's,
>John
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On the first point, yes, I agree, it's probably the least-worst solution.

On the second point: Mozilla, I imagine, would do nothing at all.

-- Neil