Universal Acceptance of TLDs Draft Roadmap

To solicit community comment on proposed roadmap for the Universal Acceptance Initiative [PDF, 117 KB].

The goal of "domain names in a TLD must be useable in applications regardless of the written script, and length or newness of the TLD" roughly captures the observed issues and obstacles driving the discussion of universal acceptance. The Universal Acceptance initiative is aimed to address technical acceptance issues with the use of domain names and related Internet Identifiers. For example, in some applications URLs using some TLDs are confused with search strings, email addresses using non-ASCII scripts are rejected (which limits the usefulness of a non-ASCII TLD name), and some applications do not present the native written form, instead only presenting the internal DNS label format.

ICANN is looking for input on the proposed roadmap for the Universal Acceptance initiative [PDF, 117 KB]. Particularly, ICANN is interested in learning what the community thinks about the goal, scope, and approach in the proposal.

On 15 November 2013 the Joint ccNSO‐GNSO IDN Group (the JIG) published the JIG Final Report on Universal Acceptance of IDN TLDs recommending ICANN to take action in promoting the universal acceptance of new TLDs and IDNs.

• Proposed Roadmap for the Universal Acceptance Initiative: http://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/tld-acceptance-initiative-18jun14-en.pdf [PDF, 117 KB]
• JIG report: https://ccnso.icann.org/announcements/announcement-18nov13-en.htm [PDF, 185 KB]
• Wiki: https://community.icann.org/display/TUA/TLD+Universal+Acceptance+Home
• Resource page: https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/universal-acceptance-2012-02-25-en

• Report