Universal Acceptance

Universal Acceptance (UA) is the principle that every top-level domain (TLD) should function within all applications regardless of script, number of characters, or how new it is.[1]

Historically, there were a limited number of TLDs available in strings of two or three Latin-script characters. This began to change in 2000, when ICANN introduced new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) that were longer than three characters, such as .info and .museum, and led to the crafting of Mohan's Three Laws of Universal Acceptance.[2] In 2010, the first internationalised domain names (IDNs), or domain names using non-Latin characters, were introduced. In 2013 ICANN's New gTLD Program introduced over 1,000 new gTLDs.[3] One issue surrounding the expansion of the Domain Name System’s Root Zone has been the ability of Internet-based applications and systems to handle these domain names. For the principle of Universal Acceptance to be realized, all valid domain names and email addresses must be accepted, validated, stored, processed and displayed correctly and consistently by all Internet-enabled applications, devices and systems.[4]

Universal Acceptance Steering Group

In January 2015, Ram Mohan (Afilias) and Cyrus Namazi (ex-ICANN) convened a group of experts to discuss the proliferation of Universal Acceptance issues after the increase in the number of TLDs in the root. In February 2015, Mohan and Namazi founded the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) at the ICANN52[5] meeting in Singapore. The first face to face meeting of the UASG was held at the ICANN53[6] meeting in Buenos Aires. The UASG is now an ICANN community-led program, supported by ICANN, to facilitate the adoption of Universal Acceptance principles by software developers and website owners.[7]

Mohan's Laws of Universal Acceptance

In 2002, Ram Mohan, then CTO of the .INFO TLD, experienced the first instances of Universal Acceptance problems,[8] and crafted three laws that appeared valid in the domain name space:

  1. An old TLD will be accepted more often than a new TLD.
  2. An ASCII-only TLD will be accepted more than an IDN TLD.
  3. A two or three letter TLD will be accepted more often than a longer ccTLD or gTLD.

As of 2020, these laws appear to still hold true.[9] The success of Universal Acceptance will result in these laws becoming obsolete.

One of the primary ways of interfacing with the Internet is through web browsers. For this reason, the UASG commissioned a report on the performance of major browsers in the treatment and acceptance of 17 different domain names registered for the purpose of providing test cases for UA readiness.[10][11]

The study found that desktop browsers generally performed well, but only Internet Explorer performed as expected. Common problems among the other browsers included the failure to properly render the URLs in the tab title bar and failing to treat an ideographic full stop as a delimiter. On mobile platforms, the results of the tests were much more varied, with the same browsers performing differently based on the operating system, with one of the most common problems being the proper display of Unicode URLs.

The study concluded that developers are making progress in making browsers UA Ready, but there is more work to on every browser except Internet Explorer, a browser that has been discontinued.

Email address internalization

Internationalized email address is also part of Universal Acceptance Steering Group , where Email Service providers are motivated to start providing email address for IDNs and also engage them to solve issues related to interoperability with legacy systems. Downgrading is not recommended using punycode however providing ASCII Alias email address with EAI is the recommended practice. Aliasing as downgrading technique is being practiced by BSNL,[12] which used XgenPlus[13] email solution.

Leadership at Universal Acceptance Steering Group

Leaders for UASG are chosen every two years by vote. In February 2015, Ram Mohan was elected founding chair, and Edmon Chung, Richard Merdinger and Mark Svancarek were elected vice chairs. In March 2019 Dr. Ajay Data was elected[14] Chair and Dusan Stojicevic, Mark Svancarek and Dennis Tan Tanaka were elected vice chairs.

References
  1. "ICANN - Universal Acceptance". ICANN. February 25, 2012.
  2. "More Problems Crop Up With Universal Acceptance of Top Level Domains". www.circleid.com. Retrieved 2019-12-08.
  3. "First IDN ccTLDs available". ICANN. May 5, 2010.
  4. "UASG Quick Guide" (PDF). Universal Acceptance Steering Group. Retrieved December 14, 2017.
  5. "Home | ICANN52 | Singapore". archive.icann.org. Retrieved 2019-06-25.
  6. "Universal Acceptance Steering Group Workshop | ICANN53 | Buenos Aires". archive.icann.org. Retrieved 2019-06-25.
  7. "ICANN - Universal Acceptance". ICANN. February 25, 2012.
  8. Mohan, Ram. "More problems crop up with universal acceptance of top level domains". CircleID. CircleID. Retrieved 19 February 2020.
  9. https://uasg.tech/wp-content/uploads/documents/UASG025-en-digital.pdf
  10. "Universal Acceptance of Popular Browsers" (PDF). Universal Acceptance Steering Group. Retrieved December 14, 2017.
  11. "Use Cases for UA Readiness Evaluation" (PDF). Universal Acceptance Steering Group. Retrieved December 14, 2017.
  12. "XgenPlus empowers BSNL to host linguistic domains". www.aninews.in. Retrieved 2018-03-06.
  13. "Data XGen Launches Linguistic Email ID Service In India - CXOtoday.com". www.cxotoday.com. Retrieved 2018-03-06.
  14. "UASG Elects New Chair". Universal Acceptance Steering Group.
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