Maria Kolesnikova, Chief Analyst at the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, participated in the ICANN82 Prep Week session focused on progress toward Universal Acceptance (UA) of domain names and email addresses.
During the online meeting, Anil Kumar Jain, Chair of the Universal Acceptance Global Steering Group (UASG), along with ICANN staff, shared the latest updates on the implementation of universal acceptance projects for the international community. Additionally, the chairs of local initiatives discussed their contributions to the UASG’s ten-year journey and how their approaches have evolved based on accumulated experience.
Anil Kumar Jain noted that 2025 marks the 10th anniversary of UASG, providing an excellent opportunity to reflect on the first decade and plan the future development of the Group. He shared that over these 10 years, UASG has initiated more than 50 studies on the support of domain names and email addresses across various software. Additionally, technical recommendations for implementing universal acceptance have been developed in multiple languages, along with tools for setting up and configuring multilingual email (EAI) services based on open-source software. Efforts are also underway to integrate a universal acceptance training course into university programs for technical specialists. Furthermore, Jain invited everyone to participate in the Universal Acceptance Day, with its main event scheduled for May 8, 2025, in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Maria Kolesnikova presented the outcomes of the local initiative on universal acceptance in the CIS and Eastern Europe from 2019 through 2024. She pointed out that while achieving full support for universal acceptance is not yet a priority for most governments in the region, its significance is growing due to a greater awareness of the need to support and develop local languages on the internet.
A key focus of the local initiative’s work is fostering collaboration with developers as well as integrating universal acceptance into widely-used software products in the region. Thanks to the proactive efforts of the group members, significant progress has been made, with support for IDN and EAI in Russian software now exceeding that of some global solutions.
At the same time, ongoing cooperation with the international community remains crucial, enabling the initiative to raise awareness among global IT companies and open-source developers about the importance of supporting domains and email addresses in various national languages.
“Changing the habits of software developers is challenging, which is why we began collaborating with young professionals through universities. At one point, we also created a comprehensive document with key recommendations for handling IDN and EAI in software products. A similar approach could be applied at the international level by developing a unified document to consolidate essential strategies for working with all types of domain names and email addresses in national languages,” Maria Kolesnikova added.
