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[art] Re: use of Emojis in Internet Standards

Patrik Fältström <paf@paftech.se> Tue, 10 March 2026 20:53 UTC

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From: Patrik Fältström <paf@paftech.se>
To: Andrew Sullivan <ajs@anvilwalrusden.com>
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2026 21:51:58 +0100
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Subject: [art] Re: use of Emojis in Internet Standards
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Hi,

In addition of all other warnings (that might be valid or not depending on context) let me add SAC-095 "SSAC Advisory on the Use of Emoji in Domain Names": <https://itp.cdn.icann.org/en/files/security-and-stability-advisory-committee-ssac-reports/sac-095-en.pdf>

Patrik

On 10 Mar 2026, at 21:04, Andrew Sullivan wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Tue, Mar 10, 2026 at 08:13:49AM -0500, Rob Sayre wrote:
>> On Tue, Mar 10, 2026 at 6:41 AM Robert Viragh <rviragh@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> 2. Do you think it is appropriate to include it as normative in an
>>> Internet standard?
>>>
>>
>> Yes, it's fine. RFC 9839 has this one, for example:
>>
>> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc9839/
>>
>> 1F5A4 # 🖤 E3.0 black heart
>
> I think there's a little more to say about this.  In particular, if you expect emojis (the Unicode character ranges) to be part of the protocol elements, there is a _lot_ to say about it, because emojis do not have a canonical presentation and also do not have any normalization forms.  This issue comes up in every internationalization discussion.  Effectively, if you want to _carry_ emojis in your protocol, likely no problem: they're just more Unicode, though you can't always expect every network node to have the latest version of Unicode. But they're extremely problematic as identifiers and you need to address that problematic nature just to make the protocol work reliably if that's what you intend to do.  And they're a _terrible_ idea for building a protocol around (like naming fields or something like that) because you're stuck spelling out the UTC U+[code] every time in order to avoid running into ambiguities.  There was a lot of discussion about all of this as a result of the PRECIS WG's efforts.  I would be careful to understand not only RFC 9839 but also at least RFC 8264, depending on what you're trying to accomplish.
>
> Best regards,
>
> A
>
> -- 
> Andrew Sullivan
> ajs@anvilwalrusden.com
>
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