Session
Organizer 1: Adam Peake, ICANN
Organizer 2: Sarmad Hussain, 🔒
Organizer 3: Seda Akbulut, 🔒ICANN org
Organizer 4: Rebecca McGilley, 🔒ICANN
Speaker 1: Theresa Swinehart, Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 2: Bhanu Neupane, Intergovernmental Organization, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 3: Manal Ismail, Government, African Group
Speaker 4: Walter Wu, Private Sector, Asia-Pacific Group
Hesham M. AL-Hammad, Saudi Domain Names Director, Communications, Space & Technology Commission, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Classroom
Duration (minutes): 90
Format description: The classroom format, with its structured seating arrangement and designated panel area, is ideally suited for our session on IDNs and Universal Acceptance. With a panel of experts leading the discussion, the classroom layout fosters a conducive environment for engaging dialogue and knowledge exchange. The 90-minute duration offers ample time to delve deep into the intricacies of IDNs and Universal Acceptance, ensuring that attendees gain a comprehensive understanding of the topics at hand without feeling rushed. A key goal of the workshop is to show participants how they can contribute to resolving the problems of Universal Acceptance. This format encourages active participation and facilitates meaningful connections among stakeholders, fostering a collaborative atmosphere conducive to exploring innovative solutions for enhancing digital inclusivity on a global scale. Additional speakers from the host country have been invited.
1. How does Universal Acceptance adoption contribute to promoting multilingualism on the Internet as part of Internet governance? 2. What are the roles of the different stakeholders (including governments, technical community, academia, and civil society), and how should they collaborate to achieve Universal Acceptance? 3. What is the framework to track the adoption of Universal Acceptance to gauge the progress of multilingualism online?
What will participants gain from attending this session? Participants will learn how local language domain names and email addresses make the Internet multilingual and inclusive, and how the ICANN community, UNESCO and partners are committed to supporting it. They will learn about internationalized domain names and registering domain names and email addresses in local languages to broaden the online inclusion of communities globally. While these options are now technically available, participants will also learn about the technical challenges of using domain names and email addresses in local languages, and stakeholders' roles in addressing these obstacles in making software applications and systems UA-ready. "It takes a village," participants will understand how they and their communities can contribute towards UA adoption. The panelists will also share what indicators may be used to measure progress on UA.
Description:
The Internet must be multilingual to be inclusive. This means the domain names and email addresses we use to navigate and communicate online must also be multilingual – called internationalized domain names (IDNs) and email addresses. In 2005 the WSIS Tunis Agenda committed to the "multilingualization of the Internet", noting the importance of implementing multilingualism in domain names and email addresses. ICANN's global multistakeholder community has deployed 150 top-level domains (TLDs) in 37 languages in 23 scripts. Today we see internationalized domain names, e.g. Thai ยูเอทดสอบ.ไทย, and email addresses, e.g. Japanese めーるてすと@どこでもつかえる.みんな. The new gTLD program continues and is at the heart of the ICANN and its community's plans to introduce more IDN TLDs in the coming years. Despite progress, Universal Acceptance (UA) of domain names and email addresses by Internet applications and services remains a challenge. For example, Arabic email addresses cannot be used to register for a social media application. Less than 10% of popular national or global websites and 23% of deployed email servers are configured to accept email addresses in all local languages, according to ICANN community studies. The ICANN community is working with partners such as UNESCO to address these issues. The session brings together key stakeholders to discuss why Universal Acceptance of domain names and email addresses still presents ongoing challenges. The session will highlight the measures and collaboration needed to enable adoption of UA, and the roles of different stakeholders, including governments, technical community, academia, and civil society, for achieving this goal. The session will also discuss how the governments could use their digital inclusion programs to measure the progress on UA to indicate their progress towards promoting multilingualism for an inclusive Internet.
Universal Acceptance adoption contributes to multilingualism online. The session will identify concrete steps different stakeholders can take to make progress in UA adoption. We will better understand the challenges of UA when seeking solutions, and the best practices we can adopt to address those challenges. The session will also identify mechanisms for stakeholders to collaborate for this purpose. The session will identify how progress on UA adoption can be measured locally and nationally to contribute to making the Internet inclusive globally. This will include identifying the indicators governments could utilize and mechanisms to collect data on these indicators. These findings will be used to update the messaging for the annually organized UA Day events held around the world (https://universalAcceptance.day) to amplify these mechanisms more broadly and globally, and plan follow-up collaborations amongst the different stakeholders.
Hybrid Format: The ICANN community is very experienced in conducting webinars and other sessions in hybrid formats. Materials to prepare potential workshop participants will be made available in good time before the event. We are experienced in creating good online learning forums. The interaction between the onsite moderator and online moderator will ensure seamless communication between onsite and online speakers and attendees. The session structure will be carefully crafted to accommodate the needs of both onsite and online participants. Q&A sessions will be carefully managed to accommodate questions from both onsite and online attendees, ensuring that all voices are heard and valued. We will ensure participants interested in becoming involved in the UA program will have the opportunity to do so - the UA processes are based on inclusive participation.
Report
Moderator: Baher Esmat, ICANN
Speakers:
● Hesham AL-Hammad: Communications Space and Technology Commission (CST) of Saudi Arabia
● Theresa Swinehart: ICANN
● Sarmad Hussain: ICANN
● Bhanu Neupane: UNESCO
● Yangyi Wu (Walter Wu): Internet DotTrademark Organisation Limited/ICANN UA Ambassadors Program
● Manal Ismail: National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority of Egypt/ICANN GAC
Summary:
The session focused on the importance of language inclusion, universal acceptance (UA), and the promotion of internationalized domain names (IDNs) to foster a multilingual and inclusive internet. Experts from ICANN, UNESCO, and national telecommunications regulators discussed ongoing efforts, challenges, and solutions related to domain name systems, and in particular with Arabic and Chinese IDNs. Discussions focused on improving uptake and low stakeholder awareness, technical hurdles and user experience challenges, the role of governments and other stakeholders, and the need for more robust policies, standards, and strategies
Key Takeaways:
1. The Critical Role of Multilingualism, IDNs, and Universal Acceptance:
● Language plays a crucial role in preserving cultural diversity and promoting digital inclusion. IDNs enable users to engage and communicate online in their local languages and scripts, supporting a more accessible internet.
● IDNs are vital for continued internet expansion and reaching the next billion users
● UA ensures that all domain names and email addresses, regardless of language or script, function seamlessly across the internet and are treated consistently across all top-level domains—a key factor in expanding global internet access and inclusivity.
2. Challenges
● Low Demand: Despite progress, uptake remains low in many regions. Adoption at only 1.2% of global domain registrations. Only 11% of the top 1,000 websites and 22.2% of email servers support internationalized email addresses.
● Low User and Industry Awareness: Limited awareness of the availability and benefits of IDNs on both the supply and demand sides means many end-users, administrators, and developers are uninformed about IDNs and Universal Acceptance capabilities.
● Technical and Platform Barriers: Persistent browser incompatibilities (e.g. - Safari's post-update removal of Chinese IDN support), hosting requirements that necessitate Punycode input, complexities in managing domain name variants, and fluctuating application support all have hindered user experience. Low support for internationalized email addresses among global platforms further exacerbates these issues.
● Geographic, Linguistic, and Content Barriers: Overcoming regional disparities, fostering the generation of local content, and enabling technical skills and capacity development are essential for broader IDN adoption.
● Coordination: Progress will require a coordinated multistakeholder effort among governments, businesses, and technical communities through ongoing collaboration, innovation, promotion, and policy development at both national and international levels.
3. Stakeholder Roles and Responsibilities:
● Governments: Should lead by example by mandating UA-readiness in public digital services and integrating IDNs into official communications.
● Registrars & Registries: Play a vital role in promoting IDN adoption and ensuring seamless technical implementation.
● Educational Institutions: Must include UA and IDN topics in curricula to cultivate future technical expertise.
4. Successful Initiatives and Upcoming Opportunities:
● Saudi Arabia's CST Innovation: Developed an algorithm reducing Arabic domain name variants from millions to manageable numbers, demonstrating successful technical solutions for local language domains.
● Chinese IDN Market Leadership: With 85% of global IDN registrations, Chinese businesses validate the commercial viability and demand for local-language domains, setting a precedent for other regions.
● Targeted UNESCO Initiatives on Digital Literacy and Multilingualism: UNESCO champions Universal Acceptance (UA) as a cornerstone of digital multilingualism, aligning its initiatives with WSIS Action Lines and key UN SDGs. Their partnership with ICANN has resulted in 52 Universal Acceptance Day events across 47 countries, fostering worldwide awareness for a more linguistically inclusive internet. This collaboration builds on UNESCO's 2003 recommendations to enhance multilingual access to cyberspace.
● ICANN’s 2026 New Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Application Round: The upcoming application round opens doors for organizations to secure domains in their native languages and scripts, advancing linguistic diversity and digital inclusion.
● Software Development: ICANN is actively working and collaborating with partners to identify and implement software solutions to address IDN technical barriers and enhance Universal Acceptance across platforms
● Cross-Sector Collaboration: Strong partnerships between governments, industry, academia, and civil society are driving IDN and UA adoption, particularly evident in Middle Eastern initiatives like Saudi Arabia's CST programs and ICANN-UNESCO joint efforts.
Calls to Action:
● Governments, businesses, and other entities: Update systems to support all domain names and email addresses to promote a unified digital landscape.
● Application developers and service providers: Ensure that their systems are compatible with IDNs and adhere to Universal Acceptance standards.
● Language communities: Generate local content and advocate for the use of IDNs to promote their languages online.
● ICANN, UNESCO, and other organizations: Continue to collaborate on initiatives that raise awareness, provide technical assistance, and promote the adoption of UA. Partner to prepare policy briefs for member states on Universal Acceptance.
● Member States: Start making their internet Universal Acceptance ready and include universal acceptance in national internet policies.
● Researchers: More empirical studies are needed on the economic benefits of multilingual internet access to encourage adoption.
● All Stakeholders: Addressing IDN challenges requires collaboration between various stakeholders, including regulators, industry, and academia. This collaboration is necessary to develop technical solutions, raise awareness, and implement policies that promote IDN adoption.
Conclusion:
The session emphasized that multilingualism and IDNs are essential for digital inclusion, not optional features. While IDNs have gained ground, their widespread adoption faces persistent geographic, linguistic, and technical barriers, compounded by limited awareness and capacity. The panelists stressed that overcoming these challenges requires coordinated multi-stakeholder action from governments, organizations, businesses, and technical communities. Looking ahead, ICANN’s 2026 New Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Application Round and forthcoming Universal Acceptance Days have the potential to greatly advance language inclusion and build an internet that truly serves all users, regardless of their preferred language or location.