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AFNIC would like to thanks the ITU and the Council Working Group on International Internet-related Public Policy Issues (CWG-Internet) for the work done and for holding a public open consultation.
1. What could ITU and its members and other stakeholders do to ensure that the Internet becomes more multilingual in nature and thus accessible for more of the global population?
In the last twenty years, since the WSIS, the digital transformation of society has been both extensive and increasingly ubiquitous. Building a people-centered, inclusive and development-oriented Information society as envision in the Geneva Declaration of Principles is still a global challenge to be met. To meet this challenge, it is essential to create a favourable environment and to foster a more multilingual and accessible Internet allowing for the meaningful participation and empowerment of both stakeholders and users alike.
The use of the 6 official languages of the United Nations within the work of the ITU - interpretation, translation and the use of new and innovative tools - is very important to allow for inclusive and clear communication on key global challenges and issues with culturally and linguistically diverse member.
AFNIC, as the French Internet Registry (ccTLD) and French Network information Center, is convinced that promoting multilingualism and a more multilingual internet requires, above all, better cooperation between stakeholders, in order to identify and share best practice and to identify political and technical bottlenecks. ITU, with 194 member states and over 1000 sector members, is a key place to discussing such challenges and share expertise. Improving cooperation with other stakeholders and the technical community, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Standards Developing Organisations, first of which the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), as well as regional and national organisations such as Country code top-level domain (ccTLD) and Regional Internet Registry is also essential to achieving concrete results and ensure non-ASCII scripts can be used to browse the Internet.
Finally, the promotion of a more multilingual internet is a strong use case of a the much needed mutltistakeholder cooperation both at the local and global levels.
2. What are the benefits and challenges of multilingualization of the Internet, including through universal acceptance of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), or the lack thereof, in terms of technical, economic, security, cultural and capacity-building?
Multilingualization of the Internet plays a key role in creating an enabling environment which is key to building trust in a renewed information society. Culture and linguistic diversity on the Internet help bridge the digital divide and facilite the participation of the widest audience in their own languages and scripts, as well as accessing content in their native language.
Implementing Universal Acceptance and building a multilingual Internet requires concrete collaboration between stakeholders and both public policy and technical expertise.
As French Internet Registry, AFNIC is engaged in the work of the IETF, ICANN, local and global IGFs, RIPE NCC and concretely working on Universal acceptance eg IDNA2008 (described in RFCs 5890, 5891, 5892, and 5893). Thus, AFNIC registry registration rules for .fr give a list of permitted characters used in French script. The naming charter is pursuant to the provisions of the French Post and Electronic Communications Code and the agreement concluded with the French State (see AFNIC naming policies here https://www.afnic.fr/en/observatory-and-resources/documents-to-consult-or-download/naming-policies/).
Universal Acceptance can improve inclusion and accessibility by enabling people to use their script and language of choice when using the Internet. Il can also stimulate innovation and economic growth by allowing for the development of new online services and applications.
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