The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> MODERATOR: Hello. I would like to welcome all of you here in the room. Okay. I'm back with another microphone. I hope it is better. Okay. Language and inclusion as many of you know multilingual Internet was one of the Agenda Items back in 2005. Language plays a crucial role in fostering cultural diversity and promoting digital inclusion.
To add the language inclusion into the digital age, we should consider how individuals and communities can have equal opportunities to benefit from the digital technology, regardless of the language or how and when they access this technologies.
Today's panel will focus on domain names, which are crucial to the functioning of the Internet. I'm joined by a panel of experts to discuss ongoing collaboration and efforts aimed at ensuring all domain names, including internationalised domain names and e‑mail addresses are treated equally and can be used seamlessly across all Internet enabled applications systems and devices.
We'll also explore the roles in the stakeholders in advancing universal acceptance of the domain names and promoting the internationalised domain names to support the more inclusive and accessible Internet. Let me take a couple of minutes to introduce our speakers.
Here in the room, I'm joined by Hesham Al‑Hammad. Also in the room with me, Theresa Swineheart. Many of the key programmes and initiatives are going to touch upon today actually are being, you know, spearheaded by Theresa's team. Joining remotely, we have Seda Akbulut. Seda is also the representative of the Egyptian government in the Governmental Advisory Committee of ICANN.
Also remotely, we have Walter Wu, President of Internet Trade Net. Walter is a universal acceptance ambassador. Jointly, shortly or maybe he has joined also is Bhanu Neupane, programme manager at UNESCO. He's been with UNESCO for over 23 years. He brings significant experience with Internet, Bhanu has joined. Maybe you can tell us a little more about those initiatives and how they contribute to the fulfillment of the WSIS's agenda and Sustainable Development Goals.
Can we unmute Bhanu?
>> MODERATOR: Bhanu, are you able to speak?
>> BHANU NEUPANE: Sorry, chair. Repeat your question one more time. I can start from the beginning. Sorry about that.
>> MODERATOR: No, that's fine. It was about UNESCO's role in promoting digital inclusion through the various initiatives that you've been involved in. If you can tell us a little bit more about those initiatives and how they contribute to fulfillment of WSIS goals and agenda?
>> BHANU NEUPANE: Thank you so much. This is extremely pertinent question.
As you know, UNESCO is an intergovernmental organisation. We've been playing a very decisive goal in advancing digital inclusion through targeted that align with the WSIS agenda and support the advancement of sustainable development goal. For WSIS, UNESCO leads C3, C8, and I think the session will pretty much fall in the bracket of C8. C9 and C10. We are also responsible for the component of C7. Which is one of the ICT applications for this one.
For the STG goal, we're working for STG4. STG9 and STG16. It primarily looked at peace, justice, and strong institution and access to information also falls within the particular SDG. So, that goal is pretty much, you know, advancing on something that we are working on digital inclusion. One of the key focuses of UNESCO is universal access to information and knowledge. This primarily ensures that digital transformation promotes equity, inclusion, and multilingualism. These are the three areas that we're focusing on. The commitment dates back to 2003 recommendation. There was a recommendation that member states had, in fact, agreed in 2003.
Just about the time when WSIS was also starting. They thought about concerning the promotion and multilingualism and universal access to cyber space which is on diversity and inclusivity in the digital world. In 2023, UNESCO recognized something that I think, you know, this audience, you know, primarily understands. And it coopted universal acceptance as one of the pillars that it would accomplish, while implementing this recommendation. Since then we are pretty much focusing on and working primarily with ICANN to see how the domain names can be internationalised and how universal acceptance can be brought to the door step of member states. How can they start it up while making their Internet and universal acceptance ready. That's one.
The other thing is making multimedia literal. We are primarily taught it is empowering and enhancing the capacity of member states. In understanding the Internet must be utilized in more than one language. We're working on that. UNESCO is also is AI and inclusivity. This is where the recommendation comes to the floor.
We also have something that we're working and advancing ICTs for education and primarily working the area of open solution. Which we take on board. Openness of data and openness of software and working more and many linguistic technologies. Trying to see whether or not the language technologies becomes a common fare to the member state and our stakeholders at large.
Of course, you know, we are also custodian of the 16.10.2. Which primarily talks and empowers members state to make information as the cradle in which development processes move forward. I'll stop there. Perhaps I will come back to the points in a bit. Over to you.
(Audio is distorted)
>> MODERATOR: That's the key challenges.
(Audio is distorted)
>> >> THERESA SWINEHART: The user of the Internet want to be able to engage in the languages that we speak. And in the methodology that we want to use the length of the domain name after the dot around all of that. I want to do that in the day‑to‑day lives. We want to do the time over.
>> MODERATOR: I'll try this mic.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Is that better? Excellent. Oh. We got it? Okay. Excellent.
(Audio is distorted)
>> THERESA SWINEHART: We have a limited role with the international domain names and tables. No? Not working?
>> MODERATOR: The microphone? Is it working?
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Is that better? Is that working? Excellent. Okay. Okay.
Where I was we have a limited mission and responsibility around the space in we're working with the community on it. We also work with many of the partners in other entities on how to enable awareness around the internationalised domain names and universal acceptance and those that play a role in enabling universal acceptance. They are important in the way we help make the Internet multilingual and inclusive.
For those of you that are familiar, it enables somebody to use the domain name in the local language or script. For example, Arabic, Chinese, or Cyrillic. We've seen many, many language communities. Some of the challenges are the generation of local content and capacity development. These are all critical for enabling the usage around this.
That, in turn, has an impact on economic growth and independent and the minimising of resilience of others. So a key goal in enabling this is actually what's referred to as universal acceptance. That's the ability for the platform to accept the script and what is to the right or left of the dot.
In the communication methodology, it means that all Internet applications and systems treat all top‑level domains in the consistent manner. This is essential for the continued expansion of the Internet. It provides a gateway to the next billion Internet users in the way that will make it more meaningful for them. But we're not there yet. Progress has been made. There's still gaps.
For instance, testing shows that only about 11% of the top 1,000 global web sites can accept international e‑mail addresses and just 22.2% of e‑mail servers support them. The challenges highlight the urgent need for the partnership in the government and businesses in the entity around that.
All of the actors developing applications and operating services online are encouraged to ensure the local content and engage in their languages. We have a team that's dedicated to identifying and making important software fixes to allow for universal acceptance. My colleagues online are experts in this.
As we go in to more detail, I'm more than happy to engage in the conversations. As noted, we'll also working with the broader ICANN community to ensure awareness around this.
With that, we are now in our third year of, I believe, it is third year, yes. Of the universal acceptance day which is held on the 28th of March. In 2023 and 2024. In this year, we have over 52 events in 47 countries. We will be hosting it again. But in partnership with our colleagues from UNESCO which we're looking forward to very much in 2025. It would be applications from interested parties to participate around the world.
As we move closer to enabling the ability to engage in your own language, we're moving closer to opening up the next round of new top‑level domains in 2026. This will be an important opportunity for universities, governments, businesses that wish to apply for a top‑level domain in their own language or script. But to participate and to apply for that. Thus enabling even more inclusivity in the world.
With that, I'll turn it back over to you. Thanks for the opportunity.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. It is worth noting that several events in the region is held as well. One in Saudi Arabia. Let's move now to Walter. I will come to you with your significant experience with the implementation of IDM. Specifically the Chinese names. What do you see as the potential value of IDMs in promoting local businesses and communities?
If you can tell us more about this experience and the challenges that you've encountered. I hope you can unmute yourself.
>> WALTER WU: Yeah. Thank you.
Actually, I'm very glad to have gotten the opportunity to share kind of the development status in China. I will have a self‑introduction before I have the very beginning from the part. I'm very grateful for the new detail programme of ICANN. It gave us an opportunity to do some innovative attempt for launching a dedicated holders. There's a Chinese character that means trademark in English.
Compared with the traditional mark, it creates the customer that's a trademark. To operate the identity by function of this characters. It not only permits the ratification for holding the trademark right, but verify between the register name. They have to match their trademark and brand names. This service focuses on the Chinese speaker region. It provides an opportunity for the owners to create the match with the brand name and bolster the Chinese. The second part I'll share some, you know, market status of nationalised domains.
By the end of the Q2, 2024, the members globally is around 400 and 8,000. The total number of the Chinese idea is 347,000. They ask for the market share for 85% for the global idea. The web address is online. It is in the company. It is a trademark and also in the six Chinese together. They have 64% of the global idea market.
Next part I will, you know, look about the idea for the Chinese customer. Or the Chinese communities. The development will give us an opportunity to implement for the end users. For the enterprises in the organisations. Most of the organisations use the local Chinese name. The English system, they must use translation, abbreviation, pronunciation symbol, and that's the symbol for the Chinese market. That makes the domain name not easily remembered. They are recognized. They are easily generated since the domain name cannot easily distinguish by the Internet users. For brand owners, they will elect for the customer marketing.
Actually, the multinational needs the idea in China. There are several examples of the Chinese idea and the Starbucks. They are Chinese brand name. They register the names. In China, the customer may not remember the English name. I don't have a statistic. I guess over 90% of the Chinese consumer can now look at Starbucks. A lot of not nationals, but localised the brand in the China market. All of the companies have a Chinese local name.
Before the Chinese idea and programme, they can use their English brand name and register domains. The customer may not remember the right of the domain for a big challenge for most brand customers to launch their official web site. Last, I will also share kind of the difficulty of implementation in Chinese.
Actually, overall speaking, you know, the idea is the biggest challenge for the international last name domain names. Without the awareness, because the ‑‑ not a lot of registrars were actively used promoting. It is always the most important UE initial. Although in the last couple of years, the browser, you know, issue has been dramatically sold.
But, unfortunately, recently we also meet another UAE show. Because the Safari after the iOS upgrade, they do not support the Chinese system right now. That's another challenge. Despite the browsers, the hyperlink for social media is also the several initials. So that's a major difficulty that we think, you know, but idea development in China.
Thank you very much.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Walter. Perhaps we'll come back to you in the next round of questions. Maybe you have some solutions to share as well. Let's come back to the room. You've been at the forefront of IDN, and specifically, the Arabic domain names and various other educations. Can you tell us more about this journey and, you know, like what were the biggest challenges where you are now and so on?
>> HESHAM AL‑HAMMAD: Thank you, Sarmad, for inviting me to the session. I'm happy to be with the distinguished guests and speakers. Thank you for all attending this session.
As you mentioned, maybe Saudi and represented by Saudi STC. We have the country and also with the Arabic link. Based on this, they develop the pilot project. It is used to identify the aspect that is need to be developed to be ready for the introduction of IDM when it is introduced by ICANN. The domain names for the Arabic IDM. It was on the Internet, a Saudi domain name. They would walk as expected.
There are many challenges that can face the users and registrants. One of the challenges that faced us, maybe you know the Arabic language is part of the Arabic script. It contains many languages. Even it is used by more than 43 countries. And there's in the shape of the letters of the Arabic. There's the shapes of the letter is the same between different languages. And even within the Arabic, there's also some kind of variant for the same letter. This was, like, a very challenging thing.
We focus on the part related to the registry. We want to make the registration straightforward. We want to avoid any confusion that can be based on registers specific domain names. We focus on the kind of variants. And which the variants all we can see it, for example, for the English. But it is solved by protocol.
Like, for example, we have variants and think of the capital and small. It is solved by the protocol. But in Arabic, we have many problems with the variants. For example, if we get to that 2/5 from the organisation which is a lot in the telecommunication commission. This maybe as a variant it is more than two million variants. This one is having two million variants. What we did and our valuable spaces start to develop algorithms. We choose something called master key. We have one master key for all of the areas. We can plug all of the variants and enable the user to enable any variants for that.
This also saved our space instead of just the two million variants to avoid anyone to a disservice domain and make it confusing for the users. It will be only using the messed up key. Again, we face the problem. Two million variants is not based on the language itself. It is not like it is used. It is not practical use.
For this we go to the stage to build, like, a filter. This filter used to make it to have, like, the first. This must be allocated. The second one is about desired size variants. The size variants and the categories. This many variants by 98 percentage. For example, the city can come up, for example. That's a lot to have 3,000 variants. This?
For example ‑‑ is this better? It was minimising the number of variants that can be handled. In this situation, they have the ability to specify what is the desired variant and they can distort without the need for another domain. It is considered as a variant. It has the same specification and integration that's needed for the same doing. Before 2021, we were providing the registration. Without fears.
In this situation, we can get with us. Now we provide them with that and define the variants and define the deserved variants and give him the ability to enable any variants to enable the Arabic to him.
Also, we go a step further. We talk with the image. The first one in between 2010, 2013. This was launched before the civilization for the international e‑mail address implementation. We implement it for a hack for the outlook and some clients. We had success in this spot. After introducing the AI, we also developed the second face. We tested it with international e‑mail and Microsoft. It is worked fine with success. The challenges is proof of concept.
Again, there's channels by the domain. We solve by the variants. We have the user part before the domain. Also, we'll have the same situation with the variants. It should be considered to avoid having the same user name for the different asking code. This is one of the challenges that we face.
One of the initiatives, we public some reports about the readiness of the browsers and other systems. We published in this 2010 and also 2014. To make sure and to make like show the key is that there's a problem with specific providers and specific systems. This maybe our journey in short in summary. Maybe the most that you wanted to talk about it now. The challenges or make it the second round. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Thank you, Hesham. This is a rich journey. Lots of lessons learned. We'll come back to you. We'll talk about the challenges. You've also touched on some of the solutions that you've had to made to deal with some challenges in the applications. We can talk further about that.
Now, I would like to go to Manal. Manal you've been part of the journey for a long time. Since ICANN, you know, started working on policies to processes known as the fast track and so on. Of course, you are part of the government and regulator in Egypt. It was also the manager of Egypt's IDM. How do you think national regulators can help foster digital inclusion at local level? Particularly in DNS and other players in the ecosystem. What tool can regulators play? In that regards.
If you also want to touch on universal acceptance, you can do that. We can come to that later.
>> MANAL ISMAIL: Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for the remote participation. I'm sorry I was not able to join you in person. Thank you for the opportunity.
Multilingual Internet is crucial for digital inclusion as have been mentioned already by other speakers. A truly multilingual Internet is essential for the continued expansion of the Internet and the growing of the online population. It is necessary to have to connect the users to the Internet. I can introduce more than 100,000. A hundred of which are IDNs. We have around 60 IDNs. We started to have made boxes that are no longer just an ASCII. We have another round of new GTs on the way.
The actual number of IDN registrations remains relatively low at 1.2% of the global domain name market. It is uptake is very slow also. This is the experience over the last year. While they experienced minimum or no growth at all, this report and contraction in their total IDN registrations. So this makes a universal accept stance of fundamental requirement for unleashing the full potential of IDNs and internationalised e‑mail addresses and provided the truly multilingual and digitally inclusive Internet.
It is the importance with the digital transformation plan and the thought to leave no one behind. They have a distinct role to play in that respect in order to reduce inequalities and bridge the digital gaps. So, the universal acceptance would deploy it on the wide scale would surely benefit government efforts regarding the digital transformation and digital and social inclusion where the pandemic here played and served as a wakeup call to everyone that the Internet is not luxury, but a basic need.
Also, preserving culture and advancing the digital identity through preserving local languages and encouraging the use on and off of the Internet equally. Ensuring that government online services reach citizens nationwide and in the initial language of the country, of course. Stimulating the growth of the local IDN market. Increasing competition and innovation, increasing customer choice, availing internationalised e‑mail addresses which have been hindering the uptake of IDN. This is also out of our experience in Egypt. Driving the use of local IDNs and e‑mail addresses as opposed to Latin‑based ones hosted off waters.
This also helps increase the Internet penetration and bridging the digital divide and promoting digital literacy and meaningful access to the Internet and lastly acquiring future proof systems and applications. The analogy with IPv6 would be thrown here. To the second part of your question regarding the government control or the role in making government systems universal acceptance ready. We are at the NTRA working closely with the Ministry of communications and technology being the technical arm of the government to ensure awareness and provide consultants. They are stress testing and assist in the government current systems and applications to ensure they are UA ready.
Take in to consideration, of course, UA readiness of online government services. Include universal accept stance as a requirement in procurement processes, standards, and purchase holders. Assist in universal accept stance‑wide deployment in cooperation with licenced vendors and other stakeholders. Try also with the academic sector to add universal acceptance as and to the curriculum of the relevant students and collaborate on the regional level to drive adoption and universal acceptance in the border platforms.
So, there's so many to be done. I cannot claim that we have achieved everything yet. But we have a long list of things to do. But again it is a win/win for all.
I leave this until later. Thank you, back to you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Manal. We've heard, I think, from everyone on the panel. Maybe it is time to pause and see if there are any questions from the floor here in the room or online? Any questions?
>> AUDIENCE: Hello. The road hasn't been expected as it has been discussed. At the same time, what steps need to take before the new round opens up? If you haven't been successful, that successful is paired together. What are the steps that we need to do? Now that we're requesting that from the community as well. What are we going to do to move forward?
Within the market competition, do we expect, you know, them to increase by a significant number. Or is the lack of confidence on, you know, all of those that have issued. What I would be foreseeing in the near future?
Thank you.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Yes. Perhaps I'll start. It is possible to utilise a script or to the left or right of the dot. I recall being at some events where you discuss that. There's awareness that you can currently put to the left or right. Not having the full experience of using something in the full experience. I would equate it with the address on the envelope. I can write it in my language. I have to put some parts that are not in my language.
There's a lot of awareness from the information aspect and what it could imply. I think there's also some solid, technical aspects that need to occur with trainings at universities and things. That's where I ask my colleagues to share a little bit. If I may.
>> MODERATOR: Yes. We can hear you.
>> SARMAD HUSSEIN: Thank you.
Just to follow up on what Theresa was saying. The next step is when people become aware for what the person uses in their own language and script. The next step is for them to acquire that and use that. We see many have registered it. Not just register, but take it further. Deploy it and have an e‑mail against it. The industry that's working with the domain names and the tools they are using, sometimes there's a lack of capacity or lack of support. That's put to rest.
Even when somebody is able to get their domain name and e‑mail address functional, what we see is that some of the applications down the stream, for example, social media and other application e‑commerce web sites. They are not domain names and addresses and local languages. We see that with the work that's being done by community by ICANN and by others. There's no growing awareness. We see more and more not just, for example, many large e‑mail providers and globally in different countries.
They are now at least allowing e‑mail addresses in different local languages to be able to send and receive through the platforms. There's no, also, more maturation in the browser technology to support the domain names. We see that the effort in which the community has actually been putting in over the last decade or so is bearing fruit.
There's growing support. We cannot say we are there. We see the area. We are trying to respond to the question. We are certainly well on our way. We need to keep working to create more awareness and more support. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thanks.
>> MANAL ISMAIL: Thank you. I fully agree with what Theresa and Sarmad already said. It is truly an awareness thing. Why the deployment of your versal acceptance.
With the awareness, it is the universal acceptance. We need to convince both sides at the same time the supply and demand. There's no appealing product in the market yet to attract the demand. Nor oppressing demand from the community to trigger supply. Ending up with the situation where we need to work on the awareness of both sides at the same time. The acceptance needs to be widely deployed. There's no use in being UA ready alone. We need to have concerted efforts to push for the wide deployment.
Also as mentioned, some may not even know that this option exists and this relates again to the awareness. Those that are online, they feel it is working fine. For those offline because of the language barrier, they are and they can get full granted and not know there's a solution to the problem. I also the business model may not seem very appealing or pressing at the moment.
So again, it is multistakeholder issue. Which has technical, strategic, commercial, and cultural dimensions and needs the buy in of everyone and collaborative efforts. Thank you. Back to you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. We're talking about challenges. You are talking about awareness. Seems to me there's some demand. You also spoke challenges. How do you see China with the challenges and at the same time opportunities?
>> WALTER WU: Yes. That's a key part of the emotional awareness. That needs to start from the registrant side. They can only see the domain names. The names and advertisement in the enterprise and brochure in their service. That service mean, for example, a restaurant. You know, inside of a restaurant, they can publish their, you know, their IDN name. That can see and get awareness of the IDN.
Actually, I think, you know, the whole industry in China, I think, generally speaking, we all begin to examine the promotion strategy. At the very beginning, when we launched the idea, the brand protection. But now we see it more and more registrar. It is the marketing strategy and it provides the directive between the grants in the customers. Or IDN can be very important. It can be an important tool.
When that can save their costs. He has the efficiency for their online and offline promotion. I look on the registry. We're trying to penetrate to the different industries. Like we have a good connection with trademark and brand industry. I think the major purpose for when we connect with the brand industry is we hope to create the motivation of the brand customer. You know. We have more cases for the registrar.
I think on the multilateral and more and more brand customer idea. Then the Internet user can see the real ID in the case and gradually it can build the habit to use the idea. So, I think that's what the Chinese community focused on. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you.
At the same time, you spoke to the challenges. You've done significant efforts in developing the tools, applications and so on. You kind of, you know, provided some of the ingredients of the supply side. How about the demand side? Do you see the demand coming from the local community? I'm talking about Arabic domain names in the case.
>> HESHAM AL‑HAMMAD: We provide the risks that can appear. Still the demand is very low. I think there's something, first of all, we need to understand that DNS and domain names is part. It is a component of the infrastructure. Changing the infrastructure standardization needs time.
So, for example, even now that it has produced maybe 1997 adoptions until around 25 to 30 percentage. Even know after maybe more than ‑‑ the problem now, we have very good and very valuable efforts from the investments. We see now we identify the problems. We provide the solution. There's a technical solution there from the investors that can solve all of the levers that are affected by the domain names.
But again, still the user experience. It is very difficult. I need to have a hosting. Most of it is not added. This is difficult for the logistics. Again if you have a variants, I need to add each varieties and enable it in the name. If I want to send my domain name through one of the platforms, like WhatsApp. If I sent the e‑mail or the domain without adding the protocol, it would not be identified. I need to add the example before the domain.
When I add this, you have the problem for the direction. Left to right and Arabic is right to left. Still the experience for the user is not giving the people the incentive to go with the domain name. As my colleague, Walter, mentioned. Sometimes he mentioned that Safari, for example, it was very supporting of the Chinese.
After the upgrade, the support is not there. You cannot find it after the upgrade. That's one of the things that's fierce Arabic for me. Maybe the question from our colleague about the domain. Should we wait to solve the problems before we issue and open the round of all of this kind of discussion. Maybe we have the chicken or the egg. It is not ready. But still ‑‑ I need to think about the platforms and how we make it ready and support this ideas. I think we need to step more to think about the protocol itself.
Can we have a solution from the protocol itself? I know that it is very difficult. But we can have a solution. DNS now is invented before every 40 years. It is based on the asking. Everything is based on the asking.
Even the computer using the ask key now. It is solved. We use that in the code as by nature. What about DNS. DNS was built for 30 years without any security. Now we have the DNS SIC. It is not covering all of the issues. We have the dots. We are trying to solve all of the problems. Why we are not looking on this part even from the protocol point of view.
Let's see what kind of solution that we can have. We can ‑‑ there's records and unlimited flags. We can use it and see how to solve the problem. Another is that we can go. The anti‑viruses and how they will deal with all of the other ideas. And the reachability, for example, if you have a keyboard for all dual language. I want to write, like, Arabic domain.
With specific, that's in the same. It is the saying between the two languages. It is different in the ASCII code. We should have the kind of ability. We should solve it from the second level and even from the top level.
Again, I appreciate the effort. We appreciate the acceptance issue. One thing about awareness. Graduate people and students. Graduate they talk about AI. The infrastructure related topics is not that important now. We need to step in the spot about the DNS and also about the ideas and other aspects even on these. I faced one of my colleagues. He was thinking it was on the site. He only understands that only it comes and also the two letters.
When you see, for example, the surfaces. You think that it is not domain name. Even, by the way, it is a technical guy. He is not aware about the domain name. We have a gap in the part. With collaboration, we can cover the gap.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. More awareness is needed. I think everyone agrees on this. Efforts, I mean, significant efforts are being done yet more to be done.
Now are there any questions? Yeah.
>> AUDIENCE: Yes. Thank you. I'm working for the telecom network of greater Asia. I would like to add something to the colleague that my brother, Hesham said about the use of IDN. We're going to have many of them built on IDN. It is very challenging. Another is addresses. Assume that I have my address and I send an e‑mail to Chinese e‑mail address. How good is the receiver? I am the collect guy to sent the e‑mail. We need to have our work around this. It is using the e‑mail addresses.
The second one is just a comment. Awareness is a public good. Awareness is different inside the organisation and awareness type, another awareness for the companies will make the software cruised by the organisation. The difference is here.
For the company that makes the provider who makes the e‑mail, he needs awareness. But the other side that's consuming this stuff, whatever his entity or organisation or person loses. We need to have about what the citizen update for the new version of the new immersion. I want the decision. It is different. We need to look to call for both ways. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. I want to check. Can you repeat the question about the e‑mail and the identity beyond the e‑mail?
>> AUDIENCE: I said that the sourse of the e‑mail address is Arabic e‑mail address. I sent an e‑mail to Chinese mail server who has Chinese e‑mail address. How could the receiver who owns the Chinese e‑mail address understand or be sure that I am the correct one? Maybe the answer is that if you are Arabic, you assume that to send Arabic to other entities all in Arabic. It is not the case. Maybe I'm a business map. I wanted to send e‑mails to my organizer outside in the Chinese area. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Sarmad? Sarmad, could you unmute yourself? Oh, you can't. Okay.
We need to unmute Sarmad.
>> SARMAD HUSSAIN: Thank you. I hope you can hear me. The way I understand the answer is that, you know, we in the virtual world we, you know, online world our, I guess, experience is not very different from our real one. When we are talking and communicates in the real world, it is many different languages. When I'm speaking to a friend of mine who is local, I'll talk to them in a local language. When I'm talking to colleagues who are perhaps not local, I will choose to communicate in a language which we mutually understand. That's what the real world experience is.
Of course, online is the real world experience. I want to communicate with my friends. We would see that also in social media, people write in local languages, because they are part of the community which everybody understands that language. But when you are communicating, for example, for business across different languages, choose to switch to a language that's not mutually understandable online as well. So I guess the answer is that we need to have a choice where you can choose to use our local language, e‑mail address.
For example, or English e‑mail address. One example for myself. I have a mailbox set up where I have an Arabic e‑mail address. An ASCII or English e‑mail address. I can use the same mailbox. If I get a response back to any of those e‑mail addresses, it comes to the same one single mailbox. I can have multiple e‑mail addresses or, for example, synchronized or, I guess, pointing to the same mailbox. That allows me to switch two different languages with reasonable ease.
That's one solution.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Next question?
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you. I'm Jamal Shahin. I'm new to the field. Bear with me.
One of the questions that I wanted to address is: how will country codes and countries be identified in the different scripts? Will you go for two characters? How will that actually sit and how will you actually, you know, make and be able to distinguish between country web sites and other and how will that play out in the ICANN system?
Another thing that's enlightening. It is very easy. It is just a question of roll out. We need people to be aware and then accept. Now as I'm hearing the conversation go around here, this is more than there are big, technical issues that I'm trying to address. I'm trying to put in awareness and what are the priorities right now? So on and so forth.
That leads to the third question. In terms of public administrations and governments, is it just sufficient to say to mandate that IDN should be the baseline? And then that's the way that we go? We have to have a standard that we have to agree to on the technical side. I wonder which comes first? You talked about chickens and eggs. There's a whole batch of chickens here; right? That's the question. Sorry.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. There are three questions. The last one I'm going to go to you. The last one about the country names and IDN. How they were chosen.
Sarmad can continue about the technical solutions; right? Back in the days when the country code ‑‑ not country code, but country codes were introduced in IDN, the ICANN community came together and agreed on the process of how to collect or pick the country names. It is based on the language scripts and how the country is being list in the UN and official languages that use scripts other than the Latin script can apply for getting rob obtaining the IDN. You know, Arab speaking countries.
So, that's the first question. Now I'm going to hand it to Sarmad to correct me and then to add more.
>> SARMAD HUSSAIN: Thank you. Repeat the second question again.
>> MODERATOR: Yes. The IDNs seem to have some resources.
>> SARMAD HUSSAIN: Thank you.
Just on the first question, I think you provided good details. Basically it is the two‑letter quote which is available to ISO 3166 standard. If a country or territory wants to apply for internationalised domain name, they can if they have a code. They can apply for any language in the county or territory in a script, which is used by the local community. There's actually a process to apply for it.
Some countries use it for the countries. Others have decided to use an abbreviation. That's really up to the particular territory or the country and their community to decide the particular strain they would like. There's a link in the chat. Go there and it is available. As far as the technical, I guess, ability or adoption of universal circumstances are concerns,
Manal, you are right. The journey is on the way, but we are not at the destination. We're in the process of creating awareness and certainly we have available for many solutions. There's more to do for all of us. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. The third question is was it enough or sufficient for the local government to mandate the use. Everyone would be following them. Is it more complicated?
>> HESHAM AL‑HAMMAD: Thank you.
I think the solution is not always a choice. Sometimes we have it like Canada. We have a good experience. We try it this year. We didn't mandate the government. We do a cooperation with the government authority. The GA. We have the government every year. They measure and digital transformation and ready for the government entities. They have some specific rules.
This year, last year, we add two criteria, new criteria with the provision. One is about the effect. It is not much. It is only measuring the maturity. If they didn't do it, only their maturity wouldn't decrease. You maybe attend before, maybe on Sunday. They announced the government entities. So this kind of, I think, techniques, I think, it is more valuable than they make the mandate.
About the ideas, I think we are still very early in the stages to mandate something. We can't promote it using some kind of ‑‑ this kind of criteria to make the user more solid. The point with the idea is, for example, it is helping people to identify if it is phishing or not.
For example, we have a national surface which called like the centralised identification provided by the material. The action is spilling in English. For example, you can add two Es. One Es. In Arabic, it is very clear. It will be more clear for the users. This is really not sure a result. From this point, we can achieve it.
Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. I see Manal's hand is up.
>> MANAL ISMAIL: Thank you.
I would like to start from the intervention of the ‑‑ from the floor. And it is very good to know that you are new to the topic. This is excellent. It means that we're reaching beyond ourselves. So, it is always good to know that we have people who are new to the topic. I think governments should lead by example. They should start promoting and using the ID ins and resolving the universal acceptance issues.
Still, I think we need to strategy more. It is not just that we need to implement or deploy universal acceptance. Rather we need to have multilingual Internet. We need to have a holistic view of what we want to achieve and we have a global plan. Because it was very surprising to me to hear that with a grades we lose the process that we've already done. We need things to be prioritised, institutionalised, and maintained. So that we continue to progress and not go back.
So, I think this needs to be a global initiative to have a multilingual Internet rather than just talk about the technical part of it. Again, we will not know all of the problems until we start using IDNs and universal acceptance extensively. Like anything else. It can be as easy as enabling some libraries and doing the technical part. But then it comes with a long list of other issues as Hesham mentioned. Security, variants, and the list goes on.
In terms of implementation, it is not that tough. But as anything else, it comes with a long list of challenges. The whole thing was built with ASCII in mind. What we're trying to do now is work around that we need to institutionalise. We owe it to those who need it, so we can pursue this forward slowly but surely. Back to you, sorry.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. I think we have a couple of more minutes. Are there any questions? Or maybe any closing remarks by any of the panelist. I think from what I'm hearing, it is a long journey. It's been a long way. A lot has been achieved. More to be done. I see we have a hand up. I think you'll have the final or the last comment.
>> BHANU NEUPANE: Thank you very much.
Just a few very important things that I want to raise here is we are following and then tracking this recommendation that was a great part of the member state in 2003. And perhaps that was the first time ever an intergovernmental process and recognize the importance of multilingual IDNs and, of course, that top‑level domain name. The Internet was just starting at the time. We had very few Internet users.
That's, in fact, become too large of a number. But one of the things that we have identified is every four years, you know, we go back and ask the government to report on this one. Most of the time, they say, okay, we have allowed different languages to go on the Internet. They never talk about IDN or gTRD. There's an extremely poor awareness on the part of the decision maker. We have also started to realise that many governments or most governments still do not have the concept of universal accept stance as the policy. This is a major drawback for us to move forward.
Perhaps, you know, there will be a time when teaching out to everyone using Internet will become a mainstream for the government. It can be recognized exactly as the data breach that happened several years ago. The gTDR become a mainstream. Around the world is it universal acceptance ready? Something should be done on that one. Perhaps it shouldn't be part of the global Internet. It is a fraternity in some sense. I think this is one thing that we've been very much observant about. We have partnered and we are now partnering with ICANN to do exactly that.
Primarily, three things we want to do. One we are trying to prepare a policy brief targeting the member states around the world to bring their understanding of the universal acceptance differently. There are not many examples that, okay, we have been asking them that. Okay. Make your Internet multilingual. What is the benefit for that? It will cost us a lot of money. I think that's just one report, you know, that's out there which actually puts some figure that, okay, if you make the Internet, you know, multilingual. That's $9 billion that you can get. As part of that. You can, in fact, a benefit. Get a chunk of the resources. Those type of empirical studies, we don't have. I'm thinking we need many more of that.
And as evidence of the benefit of multilingualism and all sense of the word, the other thing is the technical capacity around the world is extremely poor. I'll just stop here.
>> MODERATOR: Sorry. We're running over time. I've been informed we need to wrap it up. Thank you to everybody for joining today both here in Riyadh and remotely. Please join me in thanking our panelist for this very informative discussion. Thank you, everyone.