Universal Access

Universal access refers to the concept that top-level domain names are accessible globally through any internet browser, server, email client, and computer program.

When original domain names were implemented in the Domain Name System of the Internet, such as .com, .edu, .gov, .mil, .org, .net, and .arpa, non-Latin alphabet language communities were limited to easily access the Internet. Domain names at this time were exclusively expressed in languages based on US- ASCII specific script. The demand for universal access became imminent amidst the creating of IDNs.

Timeline to Achieving Universal Access

In October 2009, the Internationalized Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Board approved for IDN country-code top-level domain names (ccTLDs).

In June 2011, ICANN announced their new gTLD Program, allowing new gTLDs to be added to the root zone.

In August 2014, Google announced their implementation of IDN email addresses. Languages based on non-Latin characters and symbols (such as Chinese, Cyrillic and Arabic) are able to input their own written language into an email address on Gmail.

Chinese version of this page/本页中文版

全球访问性

全球访问性指的是顶级域域名在全球范围内都能够通过互联网浏览器、服务器、电子邮件客户端和计算机程序进行访问的理念。

当原始域名，比如 .com、 .edu、 .gov、 .mil、 .org、.net和 .arpa在互联网 域名系统中应用时，非拉丁字母语系群体访问互联网存在困难。这一时期的域名完全由美国信息交换标准代码（US- ASCII）这类特定字符进行表示。随着国际化域名（IDN）的出现，人们对全球访问性的需求变得迫切起来。

实现全球访问性的时间表

2009年10月，互联网名称与数字地址分配机构（ICANN）董事会批准了国家代码顶级域（ccTLD）类的国际化域名。

2011年6月， ICANN宣布推出其新通用顶级域项目，允许将新通用顶级域添加到根区域中。

2014年8月，谷歌 宣布其将采用国际化域名电子邮件地址。使用由非拉丁字符和符号组成的语言（比如中文、斯拉夫字母和阿拉伯语）的人们能够将其母语书面语用在Gmail的电子邮件地址中。

Chinese version of this page provided thanks to TLD Registry Ltd.

Internationalized Domain Name

Country code top-level domain