ICANN 74 is going to be held on June 13-16 in a hybrid format: in The Hague (Netherlands) and online. Preparations for it have already begun - before the conference there is a traditional "preparation week" - ICANN Prep Week, which was attended by experts from the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ.
On June 2, there was a section devoted to Universal Acceptance - “Universal Acceptance Community Update” - within the framework of the preparation week. The section was organized by the Global Acceptance Steering Group (UASG). Speakers discussed local initiatives and the work of UA Ambassadors, provided information on the progress of the UASG working groups in 2022, and shared plans for 2023.
The session was opened with a review by UASG Chairman Ajay Data, in which he estimated overall progress towards Universal Acceptance. The UASG Chairman noted that despite positive changes in some areas, the adoption of Universal Acceptance goes rather slow, and cited the development of Internationalized Email Addresses (EAI) and their support by mail servers as priorities. He also noted that all working groups are quite active in realizing their goals, and suggested that in 2023 the focus of the UASG would shift from identifying gaps in the implementation of Universal Acceptance to addressing them through the development of documents, interaction with technology organizations and communities, as well as conducting trainings on U.A.
In addition, UASG is going to focus governments on promoting top-down adoption of UA, and the academic community on more sustainable bottom-up adoption of UA by incorporating disciplines related to Universal Acceptance into academic curricula.
The presentation by the Chair of the Global Universal Acceptance Group was followed by presentations by the Chairs of the UA Working Groups. It should be noted that the working groups are quite effectively solving their tasks - many of the planned works are underway, and some have even been completed.
Another session, also on June 2, was dedicated to updating the policy and informing the ICANN community about policy issues being discussed by various groups. As expected, the upcoming conference will focus on new gTLDs, DNS abuse, and root server performance.
We look forward to the launch of ICANN 74 - follow our publications!
