[ALAC-Announce] Universal Acceptance of All TLDs - Prague Meeting

[At-Large Staff]

http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-31may12-en.htm
Universal Acceptance of All TLDs ­ Prague Meeting
31 May 2012
Universal acceptance of all top-level domains is an on-going initiative
within ICANN. Our goal is to raise awareness among all Internet users about
the diversity of domains on the Internet. In the 1980s and 1990s the number
of top-level domains (TLDs) was small and they all shared the same basic
format ­ two-character ASCII country code TLDs (ccTLDs) or a handful of
three-character ASCII generic TLDs (gTLDs). This standard format led
software vendors and web site developers to build their programs making
specific assumptions about what was considered a valid TLD. As long as the
software recognized the TLDs, people were able to use them. In the past
decade newer ASCII gTLDs longer than three characters were introduced, plus
new domains written in various non-Latin scripts ‹ known as
Internationalized domain names (IDNs) ­ were added. In the not so distant
future we will be seeing even more TLDs, including IDN TLDs, thanks to the
new gTLD program and IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process. This is why ICANN is
committed to raising awareness among Internet software developers so they
can build their software to ensure compatibility with all domains, rather
than relying on outdated assumptions.

During the ICANN meeting in Costa Rica we held a roundtable discussion on
TLD Acceptance. A panel of experts shared their experiences with the issue.
We heard many suggestions on how to better guide our efforts in raising
awareness of this initiative from the experts as well as from the community.

At the upcoming ICANN meeting in Prague we will not have a session specific
to this topic. Instead we are reaching out to groups such as The At-Large
Advisory Committee (ALAC), Country Code Names Supporting Organization
(ccNSO) and others in order to schedule times to talk with them about the
initiative and how they can help raise awareness.

If you have any questions about this effort or would like to schedule a time
during the Prague meeting to learn more about the initiative and how you can
help raise awareness, please contact ICANN staff at tld-acceptance at icann.org
<mailto:tld-acceptance at icann.org> .

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Regards,


Heidi Ullrich, Silvia Vivanco, Matt Ashtiani, Gisella Gruber, and Nathalie
Peregrine
ICANN Policy Staff in support of ALAC
E-mail: staff at atlarge.icann.org

 


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