How is it possible for special characters or characters of other languages to be universally accepted on the Internet? The Universal Acceptance Technical Training Day, which is organised by eco Association and the geoTLD Group, provides assistance, explains Ronald Schwärzler in an interview.
Mr Schwärzler, what are the particular current challenges of Universal Acceptance of domain names and email addresses?
We are talking about perfect “Universal Acceptance” when the occurrence of “special characters” or “overlengths” in domain names will no longer cause any problems. Since the introduction of the new top-level domains, there have been self-explanatory domain endings such as .consulting, which are significantly longer than the 3-letter “.com” or the 2-letter country code (.de). Even today, this poses major problems for many Internet-based applications – especially when identifiers in Chinese or Arabic scripts (written right to left) are added.
What topics will you cover in the workshop?
The workshop is about raising awareness as well as showing concrete approaches to solutions: there are software libraries that help to eliminate many of the UA problems. In addition, you can have your site checked and certified for “UA-Readyness”.
What are the current challenges with geographic TLDs?
Geographic TLDs are an expression of regional and/or cultural characteristics. It goes without saying that the content and domain names of geoTLDs should allow using the increasingly common German“umlaut” characters and special characters without any problems. The relevant manufacturers of content management systems are just as much challenged as those of mail systems, etc. We at the geoTDL.group are pleased to act as a point of contact for all questions regarding UA readiness.
Mr Schwärler, thank you very much for the interview.
Ronald Schwärzler is CEO of dotKoeln GmbH (.koeln/.cologne) and treasurer of the geoTLD.group
