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The final draft version to be voted upon by the ALAC will be placed here before the vote is to begin.

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FIRST DRAFT SUBMITTED

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AT-LARGE ADVISORY COMMITTEE

ALAC Draft Statement on
the Proposed Roadmap for Universal Acceptance Initiative

Preamble

Universal Acceptance refers to the universal and consistent ability to use TLDs, whether existing, IDN ccTLDs, or new gTLDs, “...regardless of the written script, and length or newness of the TLD”. Universal Acceptance is a critical factor to foster and ensure competition, consumer trust and choice in the DNS marketplace.

The Universal Acceptance Initiative (UAI) is an internal initiative of ICANN that attempts to address these concerns using ICANN's multistakeholder constituencies in a collaborative and co-ordinated manner, applying additional resources as required. UAI focuses not only on IDNs, but all TLDs.

On 18 June 2014, ICANN Staff released a draft document on the proposed roadmap for the Universal Acceptance Initiative which was based on past work, including the final JIG Report on Universal Acceptance of IDN TLDs.

The ALAC Response to the Draft Roadmap

1. From an end-user perspective, Universal Acceptance is very important for upholding the public trust in the evolving Domain Name Ecosystem, and for facilitating the participation of large sections of populations in the world hitherto excluded from utilizing DNS because of the lack of support for their scripts.

2. ALAC places on record its appreciation for ICANN for the efforts taken to release the draft roadmap. The roadmap, when implemented, will be of significant benefit to end-user communities that ALAC represents.

3. Given the large number of stakeholders who need to work together to achieve Universal Acceptance—including DNS operators, software vendors, service providers, protocol & standard bodies, system & network operators, security practitioners and end users—it is important to ensure that there is frequent and free-flowing interactions between these stakeholders.

4. ALAC recommends the creation of a intermediate-term, cross-community mechanism that not only provides facilitation for stakeholder interactions, but also allows organizational retention of issues as well as learnings, acting as a knowledge base for all aspects of Universal Acceptance

5. ALAC also recommends monitoring of progress of the UAI based on progress indicators that are jointly identified as part of the above mechanism, so that there is a shared

6. ALAC reiterates the need for ongoing advocacy with all stakeholder communities, and particularly end-user communities, for the dissemination of information on Universal Acceptance.

7. When targeting end-users, these advocacy and outreach efforts need to be undertaken in consultation with the At-Large community