RFC 6530 - Overview and Framework for Internationalized Email
- Status: Proposed Standard
- Published: February 2012
- Stream: IETF
- Obsoletes: RFC4952, RFC5504, RFC5825
- Errata: No Errata
Document Information
- RFC Number: 6530
- Title: Overview and Framework for Internationalized Email
- Authors: J. Klensin, Y. Ko
- Date: February 2012
- Category: Standards Track
- Obsoletes: RFC 4952, RFC 5504, RFC 5825
- ISSN: 2070-1721
Abstract
Full use of electronic mail throughout the world requires that (subject to other constraints) people be able to use close variations on their own names (written correctly in their own languages and scripts) as mailbox names in email addresses. This document introduces a series of specifications that define mechanisms and protocol extensions needed to fully support internationalized email addresses. These changes include an SMTP extension and extension of email header syntax to accommodate UTF-8 data. The document set also includes discussion of key assumptions and issues in deploying fully internationalized email. This document is a replacement for RFC 4952; it reflects additional issues identified since that document was published.
Status of This Memo
This is an Internet Standards Track document.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has received public review and has been approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6530.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.
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This document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF Contributions published or made publicly available before November 10, 2008. The person(s) controlling the copyright in some of this material may not have granted the IETF Trust the right to allow modifications of such material outside the IETF Standards Process. Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling the copyright in such materials, this document may not be modified outside the IETF Standards Process, and derivative works of it may not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other than English.
Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Role of This Specification
- 3. Problem Statement
- 4. Terminology
- 4.1. Mail User and Mail Transfer Agents
- 4.2. Address Character Sets
- 4.3. User Types
- 4.4. Messages
- 4.5. Mailing Lists
- 4.6. Conventional Message and Internationalized Message
- 4.7. Undeliverable Messages, Notification, and Delivery Receipts
- 5. Overview of the Approach and Document Plan
- 6. Review of Experimental Results
- 7. Overview of Protocol Extensions and Changes
- 7.1. SMTP Extension for Internationalized Email Address
- 7.2. Transmission of Email Header Fields in UTF-8 Encoding
- 7.3. SMTP Service Extension for DSNs
- 8. Downgrading before and after SMTP Transactions
- 8.1. Downgrading before or during Message Submission
- 8.2. Downgrading or Other Processing after Final SMTP Delivery
- 9. Downgrading in Transit
- 10. User Interface and Configuration Issues
- 10.1. Choices of Mailbox Names and Unicode Normalization
- 11. Additional Issues
- 11.1. Impact on URIs and IRIs
- 11.2. Use of Email Addresses as Identifiers
- 11.3. Encoded Words, Signed Messages, and Downgrading
- 11.4. Other Uses of Local Parts
- 11.5. Non-Standard Encapsulation Formats
- 12. Key Changes from the Experimental Protocols and Framework
- 13. Security Considerations
- 14. Acknowledgments
- 15. References
- 15.1. Normative References
- 15.2. Informative References
- Authors' Addresses