home Domains, gTLD's, ICANN Universal Acceptance of New gTLDS a USD 9.8 Billion Opportunity

Universal Acceptance of New gTLDS a USD 9.8 Billion Opportunity

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A new study reveals a potential USD 9.8 billion growth opportunity in online revenue through a routine update to Internet systems, including those for speakers of languages that do not use the English script.

The report from technology consulting and research firm Analysys Mason was commissioned by the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) and clearly demonstrates the economic, social and cultural benefits of Universal Acceptance (UA) of Internet domains.

Universal Acceptance is a foundational requirement for a truly multilingual Internet, one in which users around the world can navigate entirely in local languages. It is also the key to unlocking the potential of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) to foster competition, consumer choice and innovation in the domain name industry.

People can now choose a domain name that best reflects their sense of identity and language, although many online systems do not recognize these domain names as valid. For example, problems may arise when a user enters a domain name or related email address into an online form on a website and it is rejected. When this happens, it not only frustrates the user and reduces the opportunities for the organization to win a new customer, but it also lessens the cultural, social and economic benefits made possible by the Internet.

“Our analysis shows that the main impediment to Universal Acceptance is a lack of awareness of the issue, rather than any technical challenges,” said Andrew Kloeden, Principal at Analysys Mason. “This is not a heavy lift. The efforts required by software and application owners to implement UA are not particularly onerous; in fact most companies treat UA issues simply as ‘bug fixes.'”

Organizations worldwide have made significant progress toward Universal Acceptance, although there is still more work to be done. Case studies in the report show that many large global companies — such as Adobe, Verizon, Wells Fargo and Twitter, among others — have made needed changes to make their customer-facing systems UA-ready. However, the process is not complete, and many applications still do not accept the new domains. Universal Acceptance has progressed less for IDNs than for gTLDs.

To learn more and view the report in full, please visit https://uasg.tech/whitepaper.

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