WS 6: Universal acceptance – Is the Internet reaching the people it needs to?
¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 Adriana Minovic
- ¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0
- A significantly large number of people are unable to use the Internet conveniently and effectively because of the barriers associated with characters, writing systems, and language. Universal acceptance is not only a question of internationalised domain names (IDNs), it also includes new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) in Latin script and their use in search engines, e-mail address internationalisation, etc.
- ¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0
- These barriers are affecting people’s ability to send and receive information, or to create audio, text or video. Therefore, the ultimate goal should be the possibility for people to create and change content in their local language and script, regardless of whether it is text or audio.
- ¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0
- Usage of IDNs and related standards is low because there are insufficient financial resources available for registrars as well as registries. IDNs need to exist because they are a cultural thing and something each country needs, but they are not popular. This is supported by the fact that their usage is still very low in many countries.
- ¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0
- The problem is in our habits and it is visible in the very example of using a keyboard with our local alphabet, which is quite rare to find nowadays. So here is the first problem, followed by problems with content, and finally IDNs.
- ¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0
- The implementation of standards rather than the standards themselves is the issue. So what we need is to make sure that the standards are implemented.
- ¶ 7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 1
- We going around in a circle on this topic because there is not that much deployment in practice. If people used IDNs more, they could become more common among manufacturers and others.
- ¶ 8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 0
- If we want to keep the Internet open to everyone, we need to try to preserve its diversity, especially through mechanism such as IDNs.
We are going around…