If you ask a random person whether the Internet is multilingual, their first answer will most likely be yes. And if you ask for any proof to back this claim, they will argue that we can see content on the web in most languages and in various scripts.
We often tend to confuse and mix the Internet – which is the underlying infrastructure that makes all computers and other devices communicate with each other globally – with the web that is merely one of the services that run on top of this “network of networks”: the Internet.
While the web is largely considered a multilingual platform, an aspect that has significantly improved thanks to AI-powered tools and the dynamic language switch in browsers, what can be said about the other services and apps? In other terms, is the Internet multilingual?
A deep-dive on the need for IDNs
To answer this question, we need to check if all the other Internet services are multilingual. Let’s start with the Domain Name System (DNS), one of the core Internet infrastructures. DNS is a service used by computers to translate human readable domain names (e.g., moroccoworldnews.com) into an IP address and vice versa. It maps hostnames to IP addresses. Without the DNS, humans need to remember all IP addresses to browse the web, to send or check emails, and to use any name-based resource or service on the Internet! Thanks to this service created by Paul Mockapetris in 1983, we just need to type a domain name in the address bar and the rest is done! However, how do we type the domain name in the address bar? Can we use any non-Latin script?
Since its introduction, the DNS as well as any other Internet service was designed to support only ASCII characters ((A-Z, 0-9, -), which serve the purpose of most Latin script-based languages, with few exceptions like accents, special Latin consonants (Ç), letters with macrons (ā), etc. Internet users needed to wait until 2009 to witness the implementation and deployment of some top-level domains in non-Latin scripts. A concept known as: Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs).
In that year the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) decided to implement this new class of top-level domains, and it started first with country code top-level domains (cc-TLDs). Majority of Arab countries created their cc-TLD using the Arabic script and in February 2011, the IDN ccTLD.
Officially dubbed ” المغرب” this IDN cc-TLD was implemented and added to the DNS root zone. Checking the ICANN global TLD statistics, we can see that currently more than 60 ccTLDs are IDNs.
A lagged adoption
However, despite the introduction of IDNs for nearly two decades to make the Internet more inclusive by permitting all users to use their own script when browsing the web, its global adoption has somehow lagged. Some countries are yet to implement their IDN-cc-TLD, despite their official language is not Latin-script based. Other factors can explain this latency, such as the user behavior or habits. It is surprising – and at times frustrating – to observe that many users of social media and communication tools in our societies prefer to chat in Arabic/dialect while writing their messages in Latin characters.
Other technical issues remain too. IDNs require a global adoption not only in the browsers and DNS systems but across all applications and platforms. This is precisely what the Internet community within ICANN has been advocating for over the last decade under the banner of Universal Acceptance.
Where Universal Acceptance comes in
Universal Acceptance (UA), first coined by Ram Mohan back in 2001, is the principle that all valid domain names and email addresses – regardless of script or length – should work smoothly across all Internet-enabled applications. In more details, Universal Acceptance ensures that all valid domain names and email addresses are accepted, validated, stored, processed, and displayed correctly and consistently by applications, devices, and systems. For example, any web address should resolve to the expected resource on the correct website, and any valid email address should be delivered to the expected recipient.
UA is the technical requirement that enables IDNs to function online and extends the concept to email addresses as well. This is known as email address internationalization, where any Internet user can create an email account using his/her own script, and should be able to send and receive emails using an internationalized address.
In a scenario where a given organization, enterprise or administration adopts a “brand” top level domain to offer its customers or members a differentiated user experience by providing email addresses reflecting their identity, culture and belonging, universal acceptance means that all Internet applications should accept such an address (مستخدم@مثال.المغرب) or أحمد@domain.com as they would with any Latin script based email address.
The latest official statistics from ICANN show that the percentage of domains with EAI‑ready mail servers increased from ~20% to ~28% between 2022 and 2025, reflecting a moderate deployment trend. Currently, the major big providers of email addresses such as Gmail (Google) or Outlook (Microsoft) fully support EAI but only in terms of sending and receiving emails to or from internationalized addresses. They are still denying users from creating a new email account (mailbox) in a non-Latin script.
From a business perspective, major email providers do not see a return on investment relative to the engineering efforts needed nor the support cost. Big email providers prefer stability of their platforms over the principle of inclusivity.
A timely cause
The beginning of next month, March 7-12, the ICANN’85 summit will be held in Mumbai where different sessions of the meeting will discuss the topic of universal acceptance, a recurring theme in ICANN community activities.
Advocating for Universal Acceptance adoption globally remains a compelling objective and a noble cause. It would permit Internet users worldwide to embrace a new experience by using their own language and script in any application. Such progress would narrow the digital divide and enable a truly inclusive Internet.
Achieving this goal, however, requires all stakeholders to engage in this cause, from big tech organizations to system administrators and ISPs, without neglecting the crucial role of academia which will prepare the next generation of engineers and implementers to learn the concept of universal acceptance not as an exception but as the “normal” way to build and use this global resource: the Internet.
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