By the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG)

As the ICANN community came together for the last Public Meeting of 2022, the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) held three ICANN75 sessions that provided an overview of the state of Universal Acceptance (UA).

Sessions highlighted the accomplishments of the UASG working groups over the past fiscal year, and priorities and new projects lined up for 2023. More than 200 session participants joined from around the world to discuss UA efforts and progress being made at the local and global levels.

Below are key insights from the various sessions with links to presentation materials and recordings.

UASG members at ICANN75
UASG members at ICANN75

Community Update on Universal Acceptance

This ICANN75 Prep Week session provided an extensive update on the work accomplished by the UASG working groups in FY22, as well as priorities and projects for FY23.

The Measurement Working Group provided an overview of evaluation reports conducted over the past year which included the UA-Readiness of Browsers, UA-Readiness of Social Media Platforms, and UA-Readiness of Content Management Systems. The group has new projects focused on the UA-readiness of identity platforms and popular web hosting tools, the results of which will be shared once ready. They are also currently developing a UA curriculum for academia.

The Technology Working Group released UA-ready code-snippets, showcasing programming language solutions. They also discussed recently published UA-readiness evaluations of the top 2,000 global websites (UASG039), standards and best practices (UASG040), and programming languages (UASG037). For the next fiscal year, the group will focus on UA remediation for the 2,000 tested websites and identifying the challenges in adopting UA based on consultations with several stakeholders. The working group will continue to develop code samples for additional programming languages.

The Email Address Internationalization (EAI) Working Group provided updates on its EAI-Readiness Self Certification Guide, which will provide UA-readiness scores (silver, gold, platinum) that grade the systems used by mail service providers, software vendors, and developers. The group is also working on technical education and awareness campaigns conducted through popular developer networks and discussion forums (e.g., StackOverflow, GitHub). The results of recent EAI testing in deployed mail servers was also shared, highlighting the current major gaps in UA-readiness. Country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) were invited to use the EAI support survey tool for their zone files.

The Communications Working Group discussed their recent publications which include a new UA messaging document (UASG038) aimed at key stakeholders, and a case study of a recent GitHub UA Hackathon conducted by THNIC. The group also shared upcoming global events where UA will be discussed like the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2022 to be held in December.

The session recording and slides are available here.

Driving Local Change for UA Adoption Globally

This session was an opportunity for the community to examine current challenges in deploying UA-ready technology locally, and how to determine the best way forward. The session featured discussions on UA in academia, as well as updates from UA Ambassadors and Local Initiatives.

Led by Nabil Benamar, Chair of the UA Measurement WG, the discussion on UA in academia addressed current challenges. These include a general lack of UA awareness by faculty and students, and inefficient information and training that keeps students deploying software that is not UA-ready. To address these shortfalls, the UASG is focused on developing relevant UA course materials and conducting outreach to academia with information on UA, training sessions, and materials for inclusion in curriculum.

UA Ambassadors shared some of the challenges they have faced in driving UA adoption locally and discussed ways to improve efforts. Over the next year, UA Ambassadors will focus on developing individual activity plans for each ambassador and their region, increasing communication between ambassadors and their respective governments, and developing more awareness sessions that target local communities and technical organizations.

UA Local Initiatives (LIs) also provided updates on the UA work being conducted in their regions and the challenges they face. The China, CIS-EE, India, and Thailand LIs outlined their key activities which have included hosting UA sessions at regional events and technical trainings, as summarized in their slides. To improve UA adoption moving forward, LIs are looking to conduct targeted outreach to key stakeholders (academia, government, tech and DNS companies, etc.) and influencers. It was also announced that a new Local Initiative has been established in Sri Lanka

The session recording and slides are available here. If you are interested in establishing a Local Initiative in your region or becoming a UA Ambassador, please email info@uasg.tech.

Planning for UA Day

On the final day of ICANN75, the UASG led a session on planning for the inaugural UA Day, which will be held in February 2023. UA Day will consist of local, regional, and global events that aim to spread UA awareness and promote UA adoption with key communities around the world. UA community members discussed UA Day strategy, coordination, types of events to be held, and different organizations that will be important contributors, like ICANN Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees, regional organizations (RALOs, ALSes), and more.

The session recording and slides are available here. If you are interested in contributing to UA Day, send a proposal for your event to info@uasg.tech.

Additional Sessions

UA was also discussed in the following ICANN75 sessions:

For more information about the UASG and how you can support an #Internet4All, visit https://uasg.tech/ and interact with the UASG on social media (Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn).