Usage of emoji symbols in domain names became a hot topic for discussion in the second half of last year when the ccTLD of Samoa .WS announced that it allows registration of such names in its domain zone. It was assumed that this step would increase interest in domain names' registration on the part of young users. ICANN corporation took a long pause to consider this issue; however, last week it finally announced its position and it ended up being a negative one.
Domain Name Wire reports that SSAC published a detailed report where it listed all the arguments against the usage of emoji in domain names. The report reads that first of all emoji symbols are not universally accepted and are not supported by all types of devices that could be connected to the Internet. Symbols with human faces with different skin colors that lately have become popular are another problem; their identification is extremely difficult. Moreover, usage of emoji in domain names for people with poor eyesight is almost impossible. However, probably the most serious obstacle is that zero width joiner (ZWJ) allows “gluing” emoji together. This creates a possibility to get new funny symbols, however, at the same time the technology can be used to create two visually identical emoji, which would be perceived by the devices as different and in case the device doesn’t support ZWJ technology they would look like a set of components of various emoji. All of this does not allow us to consider emoji symbols as unique identifiers, which domain names should be.
