ICANN announced its second annual Universal Acceptance Day (UA Day). Universal Acceptance Day events will take place from March to the end of May around the globe. The key event dedicated to Universal Acceptance Day will take place in Belgrade (Serbia) on 28 March. The event was organized by the Serbian National Internet Domain Registry Foundation (RNIDS), ICANN and the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG).
Both RNIDS and the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ are members of the Regional Coordination Group for Universal Acceptance in the CIS and Eastern Europe. As Maria Kolesnikova, Chairman of the Regional Coordination Group for Universal Acceptance in the CIS and Eastern Europe, noted, in 2024 the global Universal Acceptance Day will be aimed not only at drawing attention to this issue around the world, but also at demonstrating technical solutions and tools that are already available to software developers. There will also be an emphasis on training technical specialists.
“We, as a local initiative for Universal Acceptance of the CIS and Eastern European countries, are pleased that the event will be held in our region and with such high support from ICANN and UASG. We invite everyone to participate in it!” - she said.
The first Universal Acceptance Day, held in 2023, was a truly global event: more than 9,400 people from more than 40 countries took part in it, and more than 50 events took place as part of the first UA Day.
One of the events of the first global Universal Acceptance Day was the regional conference “Universal Acceptance Day”, held in Yerevan and organized by members of the Regional Coordination Group for Universal Acceptance of the CIS and Eastern Europe - Internet Society NGO (registry of national domains of Armenia) with the support of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ. The event was attended by Center’s experts who spoke about the importance of universal acceptance of domain names and email addresses, the features of its promotion in Russia and the technical aspects of implementation.
To recap, there are over 5.3 billion Internet users in the world today, and the next billion users are expected to gain access to the Internet in the coming years. The majority of recent users reside in nations where national languages other than English are widely spoken, and achieving Universal Acceptance will allow them to fully experience the social and economic benefits of the Internet, using the domain name and email address that best suit their interests, business, culture and preferred language of communication.
