Most companies understand the fundamental role of the internet in driving their strategies and in the search for a model that makes sense for the 21st century. However, as the network's standards are constantly evolving, it is essential that companies keep up with these developments and update themselves when necessary.
In this scenario of frequent changes, a major challenge that we have already identified is the total acceptance of the various characters and domain names existing on the web, in an effort known as Universal Acceptance (UA).
The domain name is an essential part of any company's online strategy, as it acts as a permanent identity to its customers, serving as a link of trust to which digital certificates that prove its legitimacy on the web are linked. Ultimately, it is a legitimate address that guarantees the delivery of company messages to others, regardless of the intermediation of third-party platforms.
Since 2013, several new generic domain names (so-called gTLDs) have been launched that allow for more linguistic diversity and consumer choice, from those representing industries, such as ".bank", to those representing populations, such as ". ?? ? ” (".Chinese"). However, despite increasing freedom of choice, the launches also brought the challenge of getting support for these domains.
Although it was assumed, initially, that this would be a natural movement, it ended up creating a chicken and egg problem: people were hesitant to commit to a new technology that was not yet fully supported, which consequently led developers not to prioritize creating solutions.
To address this challenge, the UA steering group was founded in 2015 as an independent initiative and supported by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The main objective of this group is to ensure that all domain names and email addresses can be used by all existing applications, devices and systems. Over the years, this initiative has grown and started to be perceived as an important next step in the evolution of the network, becoming a strategic goal for the Internet Governance community.
But, should the UA be a priority considering that initial adoption was low? The answer is yes, especially now. In 2018, there was a big increase in the registration of new domains, with almost double the volume compared to the previous year. This is almost inevitable, because as the relevant names are used in the more traditional domains, interest in the use of other extensions in which the desired term can be used grows.
In addition, some regions are effectively beginning to adopt their local alphabets as an alternative to ASCII characters, which only cover the Latin alphabet. This can be seen particularly in the case of Russia, which has already exceeded 1 million registrations of new domains with “. ??” (“.Rf”, Russian Federation). The Indian government has embarked on a policy of distributing e-mail addresses in the 7 local alphabets, in its strategy of increasing digital inclusion.
Although the start was slow, it is now more and more realistic that these domain names continue to expand and the need for companies to adapt - those that are not ready is at risk of losing customers and opportunities. Some of the key members of the technology field have noticed these trends and are making significant efforts to adapt, including operating system developers, browser vendors and productivity software makers.
ABES was even the leader of the most recent global survey on the subject, which found alarming rates of compatibility in the 1,000 most accessed websites in the world in relation to emails with the new extensions. Short ones like ".top" are already accepted in 97% of the cases, but long ones like ".technology" have 84% of acceptance. However, for those who use Unicode characters, which allow the use of alphabets such as Han (Chinese), the compatibility is only 13%.
We believe that the business community needs to start looking at this situation, working with its IT teams to open the door to new ways of communication and interaction. Brazilian members of the UA are also available to serve as an access bridge to international teams with vast knowledge of the topic who are ready to help.
* Paulo Milliet Roque is co-founder and vice president of ABES (Brazilian Association of Software Companies)
* Mark Datysgeld is ambassador for UASG (Universal Acceptance Steering Group)
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