Bangkok (Thailand) is hosting the 70th conference of the Asia-Pacific Top Level Domain Name Association (APTLD 70). A delegation from the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ is among the attendees. The main issues discussed at the conference include information security, IANA Stewardship Transition, new TLDs, IDNs, domain promotion and development and, of course, cooperation between national registries in the region. At the opening ceremony, APTLD General Manager Leonid Todorov spoke about a cooperation agreement between the Russian and Vietnamese national domain registries signed in Hanoi the day before.
The Asia-Pacific region accounts for the largest number of IDN domains, which makes it obvious why the top-level domains in the countries’ official languages were the focus of attention at APTLD 70. Andrey Vorobyev, Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ., spoke at the session called “IDN Universe: What’s Next?” and reviewed the progress of the largest IDN, .РФ, and outlined the development plans of the Russian registry. Andrey Vorobyev’s report and the entire session on IDN development were of great interest to the conference participants, with many practical recommendations from the leading IDN registries. The section participants also discussed topical aspects of the promotion and use of the domains in national languages, and the successful experience of Japan, China and Thailand.
The Asia-Pacific countries are involved in the development of email services and the Universal Acceptance working groups. “It is becoming more obvious that services for non-Latin domain names are in high demand. Millions of internet users in Asia and Eastern Europe where national alphabets are primarily used, are waiting for IDNs with great anticipation. I believe that the persistence of the APTLD representatives can change the situation and the major email services and social networks will invest more efforts in developing non-Latin language services,” Andrey Vorobyev said.
APTLD 70 conference will continue on September 16.
