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The 2016 IDN World Report Turns Heads with New Design and Groundbreaking Findings

7 Dec. 2016

The 2016 IDN World Report has undergone a drastic makeover, surging into the digital age with a new, sleek dedicated webpage.

It’s that time of year again. As the 2016 IGF meeting in Guadalajara, Mexico kicks off, so does the release of the 2016 IDN World Report. Unlike previous renditions, this year’s report, produced by EURid, with the support of OXIL, Mark McFadden, Emily Taylor, Verisign, and UNESCO, brings on a completely new and unique user experience, expanding the horizons of readership by abandoning the traditional PDF design and giving the report an online identity: www.idnworldreport.eu.

The 2016 report boasts a more user-friendly and comprehensive composition through the implementation of real-time updates and the addition of more charts and graphs to allow for a superior sensory experience. “In bringing the report online, our goal is to create a continuous dialogue among worldwide stakeholders and broaden the overall reach of the report” comments Giovanni Seppia, EURid’s External Relations Manager.

IDNs represent a growing market and an increased importance in the enhancement of multilingualism on the Internet. “There is international consensus on the need to promote linguistic diversity in the online environment.  Where IDNs are in use, they are used as signals for local language content” states Emily Taylor, the lead author of the IDN World Report. From their humble beginnings in the mid-1990s, IDNs have taken the industry by storm, measuring three-fold growth since 2009, amassing a total of 6,700,000 registered domains worldwide. This rapid growth can be attributed to many factors, such as an increase in universal acceptance, the importance of maintaining linguistic diversity online and the addition of new IDN extensions to the domain name space like .рф, .みんな and .eю, among others.

“Although IDNs currently report solid growth on many fronts, there is still much room for improvement” Giovanni Seppia states. “From our survey results, we can conclude that end-user awareness towards IDNs has dipped and plateaued since 2010. With this in mind, it’s important to find new ways to cultivate awareness, hence, the shift to an online based report.” In addition to cultivating awareness, continuing to push for universal acceptance is critical, as without full-fledged universal acceptance across all applications and email, the user experience of IDNs remains poor. “Only 2% of the world's domain names are IDNs. More needs to be done to promote universal acceptance, so that IDNs can be used seamlessly in every application or environment where an ASCII domain is used” adds Emily Taylor. Luckily, much work is being done in this area and we can begin to see sustained progress in handling IDNs as content. The day when everyone can be rightfully represented online is not as far away as it might seem.

The complete 2016 IDN world report can be found on www.idnworldreport.eu

 

About EURid
The .eu domain ranks among the largest top-level domains in the world, connecting more than 500 million people across 31 countries to one Internet identity. More than 3.8 million .eu names have been registered since the domain opened for registration in 2006. Many companies and brands use a .eu website as a practical solution to convey a clear European identity and their business ambitions.


EURid is the not-for-profit organisation that operates the .eu and .ею top-level domains, following a tender process and appointment by the European Commission. EURid works with over 700 accredited registrars and provides support in the 24 official EU languages. As part of its ongoing commitment to data security, EURid has been certified for the ISO27001 security standard since 2013. EURid is also registered by the EU Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS), which is an expression of its environmental commitment. EURid has its headquarters in Brussels (Belgium), and regional offices in Pisa (Italy), Prague (the Czech Republic) and Stockholm (Sweden). More information at: http://www.eurid.eu.