[At-Large] News gTLDs and e-mail

[Adam Peake]

Patrick,

This reminds me (probably with no technical 
justification or relevance whatsoever!) of the 
problem a few years back when TLDs longer than 
three characters were introduced and some 
applications failed to recognize the new "long" 
tld string 
<http://www.icann.org/topics/TLD-acceptance/>.

Perhaps worth considering possible technical acceptance issues?

Adam



>There is an interesting discussion currently on 
>the IETF list about the consequences of the 
>approval of the new gTLD process by ICANN.
>One possible issue may be with vanity gTLDs like 
>apple, ebay etc. In this context, an email 
>address may just be user at tld  
>
>This may be confusing to email clients and MTAs 
>which try to be "smart". Currently , the current 
>standard is defined in RFC 2821 as such:
>
>2.3.5 Domain
>    A domain (or domain name) consists of one or more dot-separated components.
>   [...]
>   The domain name, as described in this document 
>and in [22], is the entire, fully-qualified name 
>(often referred to as an "FQDN").  A
>   domain name that is not in FQDN form is no 
>more than a local alias. Local aliases MUST NOT 
>appear in any SMTP transaction.
>
>Hence, if either the mail client or the MTA 
>expect to see a dot in the domain name and there 
>is none, its behaviour may be unpredictable.
>
>The new gTLD context is addressed in the draft RFC2821bis, which states:
>
>2.3.5.  Domain Names
>    A domain name (or often just a "domain") 
>consists of one or more components, separated by 
>dots *if more than one appears*.   (emphasis 
>added)
>
>Unfortunately, the current implementations are 
>based on the original RFC2821, not the revised 
>draft. There may be a lot of software out there 
>that would treat user at tld as a local e-mail 
>address (ie not FQDN).
>
>I am not aware of any study by SSAC on that 
>matter (pointers appreciated). Where I think it 
>matters for the user community is that we 
>actually expect our e-mails to complaints at ebay 
>or support at apple to be delivered. I see here an 
>opportunity for the ALAC to ask ICANN for a 
>report on this.
>
>Patrick
>
>
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