With more than a billion internet users worldwide, doubling that number, which should happen within the next decade, will obviously have a profound effect on the network, technology, the computer software industry, access to knowledge, and our environment. Understanding the effect of another billion internet users starts with considering the origin of those users. Although some will reside in North America, Europe, and other developed countries that close their domestic digital divides, the majority of the growth will undoubtedly come from the developing world. more»
"The future of the Internet will be front and center as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) opens its 29th International Public Meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Monday, 25 June 2007," says the ICANN press release issued today. Discussion will include issues such as new top-level domains and internationalized domain names. more»
Internationalized domain names have moved a step closer to reality, after ICANN announced it had successfully completed testing.
ICANN commissioned a laboratory test of IDNs in October 2006. The test was designed to establish whether the use of encoded internationalized characters would "have any impact on the operations of the root name servers providing delegations, or the iterative mode resolvers." more»
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will discuss key projects and initiatives at a meeting this week, including the internationalization of the domain name system and a new, lucrative Web site registration practice that some object to. more»
On the eve of the first ever United Nations-sponsored Internet Governance Forum, which opens near Athens on Monday, Cerf said national interests had surfaced in recent weeks that would change the process for "internationalizing" Internet addresses. The fresh conflict shows that the high- level global debate over U.S. influence and control of the global network is still unresolved, he said. more»
Starting next week, about 1,200 diplomats and technology ministers will gather at a hotel in the outskirts of Athens to resume a debate that has often pitted the Bush administration and a handful of its Western allies against Brazil, India, China and African countries. Officially, the inaugural meeting of the United Nations' Internet Governance Forum is designed to explore topics like free speech, security, spam and multilingualism... more»
Though the "Techies" have been heavily involved in many initiatives like Internet Governance, Internationalized (Multi-lingual) Domain Names, Identity Management, Information Security, Access Rights Management etc., they still have to correctly apply the technologies at hand to be able to replicate many accepted norms that have matured in the physical world such as federated identities, non-repudiation, notarizing, witnessing, co-signing etc. more»
The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) has unveiled an Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) resource site to share information on work progress, achievements and acquired knowledge in the field of IDN. It includes an introduction to IDN, information about related events, standards materials, news, information on national and other IDN developments and a FAQ. more»
The internet is a global revolution in communication - as long as you use letters from the western alphabet. ...According to Kaled Fattal, "People say the net works, but it only works for those communities whose native language is Latin-based. The rest of the world is totally isolated." Fattal speaks perfect English but as chairman and chief executive of the Multilingual Internet Names Consortium (MINC), and an Arab, he knows that the majority of the world's population does not. more»
ICANN will start the trial testing of internationalized domain names (IDN) in the Top-Level Domain (TLD) system, in the third quarter of 2006, Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN, told Interfax in an interview Tuesday. Once IDN domain names are implemented Internet sites will able to have domain names in foreign languages, and foreign character sets -- such as Chinese.
"The preparation for the testing is already underway, and it will be a testing on the top of the root," said Twomey. "We are presently moving to introduce the IDNs of TLD, and are much closer to the end for the answer." But the exact date for the launch of the IDN is not yet available. more»
The At Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) has released this statement about the results of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS). It is circulated for public comment, in view of subsequent statements to be released in the next months. At the World Summit on the Information Society held on December 10 to 12 in Geneva, the member states of the United Nations adopted the Declaration of Principles and the Plan of Action that include specific language on the issue of "Internet Governance". ICANN's At Large Advisory Committee welcomes the fact that these statements clearly recognize the role of civil society as a full participant in the international management of the Internet, and bring attention to the need for a deep involvement of individual users into its governance. more»
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) recently launched organizing of the individual Internet user community (At-Large) for increasing global participation and representation in ICANN. Under a framework approved by ICANN's Board of Directors, local and regional groups may now form in Latin America to involve their members in critical issues that effect their use of the Internet's domain name system. more»
