ICANN Board Member Maarten Botterman visited Armenia to take part in International Universal Acceptance (UA) Day conference. During his visit, he took the time to answer a few of our questions.
What is the current global status of Universal Acceptance (UA)?
Over the past 20 years, since we first began discussing Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), and the 10 years during which the UA Stakeholder Group has worked to raise awareness of IDNs, we’ve reached a point where awareness is no longer a major issue. It’s clear that IDNs aren’t just about domain names but also about supporting languages. There’s now greater awareness, including collaboration with UNESCO, on the importance of languages for culture and local use. At this stage, the focus needs to shift more toward implementation—making everything work together. This means ensuring that both content and technology align. ICANN plays a crucial role in enabling this for unique identifiers, while also engaging with the major tech companies that drive the digital landscape, ensuring they embrace IDNs as well. What we’re seeing today is that the big tech industry is eager to collaborate with ICANN’s technical support to implement the right standards and code. They recognize that failing to do so would be a systemic issue, and they’re actively working to address it. I believe the future of IDNs is promising, and with that, support for languages on the internet will advance significantly in the coming years.
At what point can we confidently say that UA is fully operational?
It’s already working because many people are using it. While it’s not universally adopted yet, the key difference between IDN usage and the original internet use is that IDNs are often used by smaller groups of people, typically living in the same region. As a result, both traditional domain names and IDNs will likely coexist moving forward.
A great example of this is Armenia. It’s not just used within Armenia itself, but also by the large Armenian diaspora around the world. IDNs offer significant added value by allowing Armenians to access content in their language and communicate in their language, no matter where they are. In this context, I see it as a significant step forward.
How would you assess Armenia’s efforts in advancing the implementation of UA?
I’ve been following Armenia’s efforts for some time, and it’s clear that the ISOC Armenia has played a significant role in supporting Universal Acceptance (UA) Day, a major awareness event, since its inception in 2023, and continues to do so. I’m also impressed by the vision expressed here, as it seems Armenia is truly ready for this and sees it as an opportunity. This is especially notable considering that the economics of investing in a small language differ from those for a larger one. It’s really encouraging to see this commitment, and I can feel the determination behind it—it makes perfect sense.
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