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Universal Acceptance Policy Brief Marks Next Step in ICANN-UNESCO Collaboration

5 juin 2026
Par
Theresa Swinehart

Theresa Swinehart

SVP, Global Domains & Strategy

Theresa Swinehart is the Senior Vice President of Global Domains and Strategy. In this role, she works with the community, contracted parties, stakeholders, and policymakers to ensure broad and inclusive engagement, consensus-based policymaking through ICANN’s multistakeholder model, and effective, accountable policy implementation. Her responsibilities include policy implementation, review operation, and cross-functional strategic initiatives such as ICANN’s compliance with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. An expert in global Internet governance, Theresa also serves as co-deputy to the President and CEO. Her extensive industry experience, including nearly 20 years as a key contributor to ICANN’s growth and development, gives her a valuable perspective on how ICANN organization can work efficiently and collaboratively to better serve the global Internet community.

Theresa rejoined ICANN after three years as Executive Director of Global Internet Policy at Verizon Communications, where she specialized in emerging issues as well as stakeholder and policy engagement. Prior to this, she served as ICANN’s Vice President of Global and Strategic Partnerships, leading a team responsible for partnership reform, global engagement and outreach, and the participation in international forums. Before ICANN, Theresa was Director of Global E-Commerce at MCI, where she was responsible for such issues as Internet service provider liability, data protection, and participation in Internet-related forums, including the formation of ICANN. 

Theresa has a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the University of California, Davis, a graduate degree in international studies from the University of Vienna, Austria, and a juris doctorate from American University. She served on the Internet Society’s Board of Trustees and Internet Governance Forum’s Multistakeholder Advisory Committee. Theresa began her career in international human rights. She is fluent in German and is conversant in French.

ICANN and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have jointly developed a new policy brief focused on Universal Acceptance (UA), a project that marks another important milestone in the growing collaboration between our two organizations.

The opportunity for all to use the Internet in their choice of language and script is an essential aspect for all communities to be part of the digital society and engage in the global digital future. This UA policy brief represents the most recent contribution to our ongoing cooperation. This work includes strengthening collaboration on multilingual domain names and UA-related initiatives such as UA Day.

ICANN brings deep experience in the technical coordination of the Domain Name System and implementation best practices surrounding UA, while UNESCO contributes longstanding expertise in cultural and linguistic diversity, education, and digital inclusion policy. Together, these perspectives complement each other to frame what UA is and highlight that UA is not only a technical priority but also encompasses other aspects to enable inclusive digital development.

The publication reflects a shared commitment to building a multilingual Internet – one where everyone, regardless of language or script, can fully participate online. Whether a registered domain name is written in Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Devanagari, or another script, users should be able to access websites and communicate online via email without technical barriers. Enabling this functionality is especially critical as more Internationalized Domain Names and email address internationalization are available more widely.

UA is more than a technical issue. It is also closely connected to broader goals around digital inclusion, allowing communities to express their culture and languages on the Internet, opening both social and economic opportunities. When systems fail to recognize valid domain names or email addresses because they use different scripts or newer domain extensions, they can create unnecessary barriers to participation in the digital economy and online public life. UA adoption helps ensure that all valid domain names and email addresses work consistently across all Internet-enabled systems, devices, and applications.

Achieving widespread UA requires collaboration across many different stakeholder groups. Governments, educational institutions, the technical community, and civil society all have responsibilities and a role to play. The policy brief is intended to support dialogue among these groups and provide a shared reference point for understanding why UA matters and how it connects to wider digital policy objectives.

As more countries and institutions seek to expand meaningful connectivity and local-language digital participation, these conversations are becoming increasingly relevant across global Internet governance forums, including the World Summit on Information Society. We hope this policy brief will serve as a useful resource for stakeholders, especially the public sector, working to build a more inclusive Internet and encourage further engagement with UA implementation efforts around the world.

We invite everyone to read the policy brief and explore additional UA resources. We also encourage stakeholders across sectors to support UA adoption and implementation efforts within their own organizations.

Authors

Theresa Swinehart

Theresa Swinehart

SVP, Global Domains & Strategy
Theresa Swinehart

Theresa Swinehart

SVP, Global Domains & Strategy

Theresa Swinehart is the Senior Vice President of Global Domains and Strategy. In this role, she works with the community, contracted parties, stakeholders, and policymakers to ensure broad and inclusive engagement, consensus-based policymaking through ICANN’s multistakeholder model, and effective, accountable policy implementation. Her responsibilities include policy implementation, review operation, and cross-functional strategic initiatives such as ICANN’s compliance with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. An expert in global Internet governance, Theresa also serves as co-deputy to the President and CEO. Her extensive industry experience, including nearly 20 years as a key contributor to ICANN’s growth and development, gives her a valuable perspective on how ICANN organization can work efficiently and collaboratively to better serve the global Internet community.

Theresa rejoined ICANN after three years as Executive Director of Global Internet Policy at Verizon Communications, where she specialized in emerging issues as well as stakeholder and policy engagement. Prior to this, she served as ICANN’s Vice President of Global and Strategic Partnerships, leading a team responsible for partnership reform, global engagement and outreach, and the participation in international forums. Before ICANN, Theresa was Director of Global E-Commerce at MCI, where she was responsible for such issues as Internet service provider liability, data protection, and participation in Internet-related forums, including the formation of ICANN. 

Theresa has a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the University of California, Davis, a graduate degree in international studies from the University of Vienna, Austria, and a juris doctorate from American University. She served on the Internet Society’s Board of Trustees and Internet Governance Forum’s Multistakeholder Advisory Committee. Theresa began her career in international human rights. She is fluent in German and is conversant in French.