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) | |
The Multilingual Internet Names Consortium or MINC is an advocate organization for the multilingual Internet and multilingual domain names. It is a non-profit and non-governmental organization working actively in the internationalization of the Internet and domain names since its conception. Being an international organization, it has members and from different professional sectors, 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
MINC began around mid 2000. The idea of the consortium was turned into reality by the 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
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 deployed IDNs are registered with MINC's IDN database and RFC compliant.[5]
Mission Statement edit
MINC aims to democratize the global Internet by providing ground for multilingual domain names, Internet protocols, and technical coordination with other international organizations.[6] MINC hopes that someday everyone around the globe will be able to communicate over the Internet in their very own language. It is in close coordination with the language centers of different countries, such as JDNA (Japanese), CDNA (Chinese), INFITT (Tamil), Euro-LINC (European Languages), CYINC (Cyrillic), GLWG (Georgian), RLWG (Russian ) as well as The Arabic Language and Scripts, and ULWG (Urdu).[7]
MINC and ICANN edit
Khaled Fattal, Chairman and CEO of the Consortium, is an active member of ICANN and participates in its meetings. In fact, as of the 2010 ICANN 39 meeting, he was a member of the ICANN 30-plus Meetings Group.[8] He was a member of the IDN Working Group that helped create the reality of IDNs,[9] and a member of the President's advisory group on IDNs.[10] 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.[11] In 2010, ICANN approved the .emarat TLD, considering the aurguments given by Fattal.[12]
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.[13]
Prior to publishing the new gTLD application guide book, ICANN formulated a Draft DAG4 in 2010. Commenting on the draft, Mr. Fattal said that he did not support the rule in which ICANN stated that every applicant would be screened for his involvement in terrorism. He requested that ICANN either clarifies the domain of this word of 'terrorism' or omits it from the guide book because there is a serious risk in publishing this rule. Arabs and Muslims will get a view that this is a racist act by ICANN and it will be a violation of ICANN's mandate of being an international organization.[14] ICANN seriously noted this point and changed the policy rule which now states that every gTLD application will be screened according to the laws of U.S Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and SDN list. This policy is published in 7th and final gTLD Applicant Guidebook discussed at the ICANN 41 meeting held in Singapore in June, 2011.[15] Even now Mr. Fattal is of the view that this will give an indication of US control over ICANN. Other countries might as well start thinking about creating their own internet root, which would be the end of a single, global Internet.[16]
IDNO edit
In October 2009, Mr. Khaled Fattal wrote a letter to chairmen of ICANN, GAC and ICANN board of directors proposing a new ICANN names supporting organization for the management of IDN's. This body was supposed to be named as The Internationalized Domain Names Supporting Organization. Fattal said that ICANN was not able to fully understand and implement the concept of IDN and hence there is need to make a new organization that will handle the issues and risks regarding them.[17] The full text of Mr. Fattal's letter can be viewed here.