[NA-Discuss] Multilingual Domain Name Delay A Barrier to Net Diversity

[Robert Guerra]

Thought i'd share the following article (below) that was published  
today in Michael Geist's blog and syndicated column .

Regards

Robert
--

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2000/159/

Multilingual Domain Name Delay A Barrier to Net Diversity

Monday June 04, 2007
Appeared in the Toronto Star on June 4, 2007 as It's Time to Support  
a Multilingual Web

Imagine if each time a Canadian Internet user entered an email or  
website address, they would be required to include a Chinese or  
Cyrillic character.  For millions of non-English speakers around the  
world, this is precisely what they experience when they use the  
Internet as the domain name system is unable to fully accommodate  
their local language.

Since their inception, domain names have been largely confined to  
ASCII text, based on a Roman character set used in the English  
language.  While this works well for people familiar with those  
characters, thousands of other language characters - from French  
accents to the Greek alphabet to Japanese Kanji - are not  
represented.  This creates a significant access barrier for non- 
English speakers, who are forced to use the Roman characters for most  
aspects of their Internet addressing.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the  
agency responsible for administering the domain name system, has long  
pledged to remedy this issue by creating “internationalized domain  
names” (more appropriately described as multilingual domain names).   
Indeed, nearly seven years ago the ICANN board passed a resolution  
recognizing "that it is important that the Internet evolve to be more  
accessible to those who do not use the ASCII character set."

Notwithstanding its stated commitment to multilingual domains, the  
issue has languished, a victim of indifference and even occasional  
hostility from ICANN leadership.  Last year, after a group of  
developing countries emphasized the need for faster progress on the  
issue, ICANN President and CEO Paul Twomey warned that "if we get  
this wrong we could very easily and permanently break the Internet."

Multilingual domains have also been stymied by opposition from the  
trademark community, a powerful lobby group within the ICANN system  
which fears that the introduction of new language characters will  
lead to market confusion and a proliferation of cybersquatting disputes.

ICANN has repeatedly struck committees, held workshops, and  
introduced guidelines, yet there has been little to show for the  
efforts. Governments have become increasingly impatient with the lack  
of progress.  At the 2005 World Summit on the Information Society,  
they specifically underlined the need to "advance the process for the  
introduction of multilingualism in a number of areas including domain  
names, e-mail addresses and keyword look-up" and to "implement  
programmes that allow for the presence of multilingual domain names  
and content on the Internet...to ensure the participation of all in  
the emerging new society."

While the international Internet community has struggled with the  
multilingual domain name issue, many countries have prioritized the  
implementation of local languages within their country-code domain  
names.  In fact, the strongest indictment of international inaction  
comes from the experiences elsewhere - China, Korea, Germany, Sweden,  
Greece, and Israel are among the dozens of countries that have  
successfully implemented multilingual domain names within their local  
domain name system so that Internet users can function in their local  
language when using country-code domains such as dot-cn (China) or  
dot-de (Germany) even if the international system is still off-limits.

Canada has disappointingly lagged on this issue.  The Canadian  
Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), which manages the dot-ca  
domain, should pass one million domain name registrations by early  
2008, yet implementation of French language characters is only likely  
to take place in the next few years.

CIRA has faced community pressure to address the issue. Multilingual  
domains were raised as a concern at a 2003 CIRA public forum in  
Halifax and again at a 2004 CIRA public forum in Calgary.  At each  
event, CIRA indicated that the issue was a priority and promised  
action by 2006.

By August 2006, the Government of Quebec decided that it had waited  
long enough.  In a letter to the CIRA Board (I was a member of the  
board at the time), it delivered an official request for multilingual  
domains to allow for the use of French language characters.

Most of the world - including thousands of Canadians - are literally  
locked out of the domain name system by reason of limitations in  
language. With an ICANN meeting set for later this month in Puerto  
Rico and the CIRA annual meeting scheduled for early September, the  
time has come to prioritize linguistic diversity on the Internet by  
giving multilingual domains the attention they deserve.

Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E- 
commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law.  He can  
reached at mgeist at uottawa.ca or online at www.michaelgeist.ca.