Multilingual Internet Names Consortium
 | |
| Type: | non-profit |
| Industry: | Internet |
| Founded: | June 2000 |
| Founder(s): | i-DNS.net,APNG,IDRC |
| Businesses: | International Coordination Mechanism Council ICMC |
| Email: | sec07[at]minc.org |
| Website: | MINC |
| Blog: | MINC News |
| Key People | |
| Khaled Fattal, Chairman & CEO Tan Tin Wee, Vice Chairman(2000-2004) | |
Multilingual Internet Names Consortium or MINC is pioneer organization for multilingual domain names. It is a non-profit and non-governmental organization working actively in internationalization of multilingual domain names since its conception. Being an international organization, it has its members from all of the world including people from academics, software companies, ISPs, TLD administrators, research institutions and governments.[1]
MINC is a part of The Multilingual Internet Group, which includes WebSynergys Inc., Ankabooot, LIve Multilingual Translator and ArabicSSL.[2]
Development[edit | edit source]
MINC began around mid 2000. The idea of the consortium was turned into reality by combined efforts of the Asia Pacific Networking Group (APNG), the National University of Singapore, i-DNS.net, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada, and members of the Asia Pacific Internet academic, government and business communities.[3]
The Arabic charter of the consortium was established by Asaad Alnajjar.[4]
ICMC[edit | edit source]
ICMC is the International Coordination Mechanism Council formed by MINC in 2006. This council is responsible for coordinating with all the authorities working for various IDNs, in a way that ensures a respectful multilingual internet society. ICMC also works to makes sure that all deployments of IDN should be registered with MINC's IDN database and should be internet RFC compliant.[5]
Mission Statement[edit | edit source]
MINC aims for equalization of the Internet by providing ground for multilingual domain names, Internet protocols, and technical coordination with other international organizations.[6] MINC looks forward to a day when everyone around the globe will be able to communicate over the Internet in their very own language. It is in close coordination with language centers of different countries like JDNA (Japanese), CDNA (Chinese), INFITT (Tamil), Euro-LINC (European Languages), CYINC (Cyrillic), GLWG (Georgian), RLWG (Russian ) as well as The Arabic language and scripts WG (Arabic) and ULWG (Urdu).[7]
MINC and ICANN[edit | edit source]
Khaled Fattal, Chairman and CEO of the Consortium, is an active member of ICANN and participates in its meetings. He was a member of the IDN Working Group that helped create the reality of IDNs,[8] and a member of the President's advisory group on IDNs.[9] In its goal of internationalizing the Internet, MINC works closely with ICANN, IGF, IANA, IETF and other organizations. Since 2000, ICANN has been working with MINC to solve the problems arising in establishment of multilingual Internet.[10] In 2010, ICANN approved the .emarat TLD, considering the aurguments given by Fattal.[11]
In 2008, ICANN accepted Mr. Fattal's suggestion to appoint an independent entity for the review of ICANN board. ICANN issued a request for proposal - RFP for interested parties in April 2008. The responsibilities of this entity would be to comment on the performance of ICANN board of directors and also point out any improvements needed.[12]
Mr. Fattal does not support ICANN's policy of checking every gTLD application according to the laws of U.S Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). This policy is published in 7th and final gTLD Applicant Guidebook discussed at the ICANN 41 meeting held in Singapore in June, 2011. Fattal is of the view that ICANN has took a serious risk in publishing this rule. Other countries may object to ICANN's partial behavior and may start thinking about creating their own internet root, which would be the end of a single, global Internet.[13]