[ttepasse]

Some years ago I had the weird idea of localized domain names. Some mechanism like rel=canonical, that would indicate first that two domain names in different scripts are the same and second indicates the preferred displayed domain name according to the locale of the user. So sesamstraße.example could be displayed as is for de-DE and de-AT, but as sesamstrasse.example for de-CH, assuming both domain names are registered and indicate sameness. With that at least for the main locale of a domain the users do have the minimal courtesy of having the domain displayed right and for other locales there exists an ASCII compatibility display.

But of course giving websites control over the display of their domain name is a major security headache. No idea what kind of stuff would be possible and how it would interact with TLS.

[cool_dude85]

This is probably a reasonable way to handle sesamstraße.example, but how do we manage if skroutz.gr wishes to become σκρουτζ.com? Do we grant them scrooge.com in a non-Greek locale, as Skroutz is the Greek transliteration of Scrooge, or do they get stuck with the letter-for-letter skroutz.com? Will I go to a different site depending on my locale if I type scrooge.com?

What happens when someone registers θεν.com and someone else gets δεν.com, since both transliterate into ASCII as then.com?

In short, the idea has many potential pitfalls.

[ttepasse]

That was why I thought that for the reason to work the entity has already have to have registered both (or more) domain names and both domains must, possible in DNS records, indicate their respective equivalence. So no automatic translation, but definitive opt-in by the domain owners.

[jesprenj]

I had a similar non-related idea for web browsers. Currently domains are mainly lowercase on the web, so we could use a HTTP header to specify the correct capitalization.

capitalization: HarryPotter.Hogwarts.UK

Of course we'd have a lot of lookalike domain problems, like we have with IDN now (: