On June 3, ICANN71 Prep Week hosted the Universal Acceptance Community Update session, moderated by Maria Kolesnikova, Chief Analyst at the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ. Akinori Maemura (ICANN), Ajay Data (UASG), Cheryl Langdon-Orr (GNSO), Jeffrey Neuman (GNSO), Satish Babu (APRALO) and Alejandra Reynoso (ccNSO) participated in the session.
The session aimed to engage the leaders and representatives of ICANN’s advisory committees and working groups in the discussion and resolution of pressing issues of universal acceptance (UA), and to encourage them to share their organizations’ plans to promote and implement universal acceptance. This approach will help broaden the range of stakeholders and increase the opportunities for all stakeholders in the ICANN community to collaborate in further promoting and implementing universal acceptance. Preparedness for universal acceptance has a significant impact on the development of competition and accessibility to all existing domain names around the world.
During the online meeting, representatives of the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) spoke about their activities and universal acceptance as a priority for the ICANN community; they also presented proposals for involving representatives from the GAC, ccNSO, GNSO and ALAC in the implementation process.
UASG Ajay Data proposed that every website be checked for UA because every website and online service must correctly handle user requests using internationalized email addresses. He stressed that this would be the very first step towards fully adapting universal acceptance.
Representatives from the GNSO, ccNSO and the At-Large community outlined their UA initiatives and projects and made recommendations on how to develop engagement with the UASG to achieve the common goals of promoting and implementing universal acceptance everywhere.
As Maria Kolesnikova noted, universal acceptance is an ambitious goal that requires the participation of many parties, and it is impossible to achieve it in a short period of time. “This is why we discussed joint work with representatives of supporting organizations and ICANN advisory committees. It is encouraging to see that support for all domain names and email addresses on the internet is the focus of nearly every agency in the ICANN community,” she added.
