The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has released the results of its first consultation on its proposed implementation of .CA domains with French accent characters (known as the Latin Supplement -1 Unicode characters), such as é à ü and ç.

Under its initial implementation plan, CIRA proposed a sunrise period during which owners of .CA domain owners could register as many French accented variants of their existing ASCII (non- accented Latin-based script characters, namely the letters a-z) domains as they opted for.  For example, the owner of grace.ca could also register grâce.ca during the sunrise period, before that accented variant of grace.ca (and all other French accent variants) would be opened up for registration to anyone else who otherwise qualifies to own a .CA domain.

As a result of comments received during the first consultation period, many citing concerns about increased costs to .CA domain owners, phishing and the potential for consumer confusion, CIRA is now proposing to do away with any sort of sunrise and landrush periods and instead is proposing that only the owner of a .CA domain name with ASCII characters would have the right to register any or all French accented versions of that .CA domain. In addition, under the new proposal, once a French accented .CA domain name variant has been registered, it cannot be transferred without also transferring the ASCII .CA domain name and all other registered French accented .CA domain name variants.  CIRA refers to this concept as “character bundling”.   In addition, CIRA is also considering the feasibility of some additional French accent characters that are commonly used.

CIRA is seeking input and comments on its revised implementation plan, during a second consultation period, running from January 24 to February 24, 2012.