The next ICANN conference, ICANN72 will be held online on October 25-28. However, the preparations are already in full swing: as has become a tradition for the online format, the ICANN Prep Week took place on the eve of the conference. The ICANN Prep Week is held on October 12-14. On October 12, it featured a session on universal acceptance.
Universal acceptance (UA) is traditionally discussed at ICANN’s conferences and is one of the five strategic areas of ICANN’s work in 2021-2025.
The session was organized by the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) to present the results of UASG working groups’ 2021 activities and plans for next year to the ICANN community. UASG Chair Ajay Data spoke about the progress in getting ready for the universal acceptance of all domain names and emails in 2021, and chairs of the six UASG working groups spoke about the projects they would be working on during next year.
Maria Kolesnikova, chief analyst of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ and chair of the UASG Communications Working Group, presented a review of the group’s plans. Next year, it is planned to focus on the development of a communication plan aimed at improving both external and internal communications of the UASG, promotion of UASG’s developed documents, training and tools, and the creation of new education content on universal acceptance, in particular, educational videos that would demonstrate ways of developing an application complying with the criteria of universal acceptance or to set up an email service supporting EAI (Email Address Internationalization).
The Universal Acceptance Readiness Report FY21 was presented at the session. It covers UASG’s activities in the 2021 financial year. An analysis of the UA gaps in modern technologies and applications highlighted the areas that should be worked on.
The report focuses on the initiatives and achievements of the Universal Acceptance Regional Coordination Group of CIS and Eastern Europe established at the initiative of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ in 2019.
