FYI, an item of possible interest from BBC…
Time for multilingual net domains
Last Updated: Thursday, 7 June 2007, 09:16 GMT 10:16 UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6725807.stm
Internet law professor Michael Geist argues that delays to
multilingual domain names are holding back internet diversity.
Imagine if each time a British internet user entered an
e-mail or website address, they would be required to include a Chinese or Cyrillic
character.
For millions of non-English speakers around the world, this
is precisely what they experience when they use the internet as the domain name
system is unable to fully accommodate their local language.
Since their inception, domain names have been largely
confined to ASCII text, based on a Roman character set used in the English
language.
While this works well for people familiar with those
characters, thousands of other language characters - from French accents to the
Greek alphabet to Japanese Kanji - are not represented.
Indifference and hostility
This creates a significant access barrier for non-English
speakers, who are forced to use the Roman characters for most aspects of their
internet addressing.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
(Icann), the agency responsible for administering the domain name system, has
long pledged to remedy this issue by creating "internationalised domain
names" (more appropriately described as multilingual domain names).
Indeed, nearly seven years ago the Icann board passed a
resolution recognising "that it is important that the internet evolve to
be more accessible to those who do not use the ASCII character set."
Notwithstanding its stated commitment to multilingual
domains, the issue has languished, a victim of indifference and even occasional
hostility from Icann leadership.
Growing impatience
Last year, after a group of developing countries emphasised
the need for faster progress on the issue, Icann President and CEO Paul Twomey
warned that "if we get this wrong we could very easily and permanently
break the internet."
Multilingual domains have also been stymied by opposition
from the trademark community, a powerful lobby group within the Icann system
which fears that the introduction of new language characters will lead to
market confusion and a proliferation of cybersquatting disputes.
Icann has repeatedly struck committees, held workshops, and
introduced guidelines, yet there has been little to show for the efforts.
Governments have become increasingly impatient with the lack
of progress.
International inaction
At the 2005 World Summit on the Information Society, they
specifically underlined the need to "advance the process for the
introduction of multilingualism in a number of areas including domain names,
e-mail addresses and keyword look-up" and to "implement programs that
allow for the presence of multilingual domain names and content on the internet
to ensure the participation of all in the emerging new society."
While the international internet community has struggled
with the multilingual domain name issue, many countries have prioritised the
implementation of local languages within their country-code domain names.
In fact, the strongest indictment of international inaction
comes from the experiences elsewhere - China, Korea, Germany, Sweden, Greece,
and Israel are among the dozens of countries that have successfully implemented
multilingual domain names within their local domain name system so that
internet users can function in their local language when using country-code
domains such as dot-cn (China) or dot-de (Germany) even if the international
system is still off-limits.
Success has not been uniform at the country-code level,
however.
Locked out
For example, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority
(CIRA), which manages the dot-ca domain, should pass one million domain name
registrations by early 2008, yet implementation of French language characters
is only likely to take place in the next few years.
By August 2006, the Government of Quebec decided that it had
waited long enough. In a letter to the CIRA Board (I was a member of the board
at the time), it delivered an official request for multilingual domains to
allow for the use of French language characters.
Most of the non-English speaking world is literally locked
out of the domain name system by reason of limitations in language.
With an ICANN meeting set for later this month in Puerto
Rico, the time has come to prioritise linguistic diversity on the Internet by
giving multilingual domains the attention they deserve.
Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet
and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can be
reached at mgeist@xxxxxxxxxx or online at www.michaelgeist.ca.
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