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 | edit source]
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 | 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 ensure that all deployed IDNs are registered with MINC's IDN database and RFC compliant.[5]
Mission Statement[edit | edit source]
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 | edit source]
Khaled Fattal, Chairman and CEO of the Consortium, is an active member of ICANN and participates in its meetings; 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 from the establishment of the multilingual Internet.[11]
In 2008, ICANN accepted Mr. Fattal's suggestion to appoint an independent entity for a review of the 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's Board of Directors and also to point out any improvements needed.[12]
In October, 2009, Mr. Khaled Fattal wrote a letter to the chairmen of ICANN, GAC and ICANN Board of Directors proposing a new ICANN names supporting organization for the management of IDNs. This body would be the Internationalized Domain Names Supporting Organization (IDNSO). Fattal said that, as is, ICANN was not fully addressing the implementation of IDNs, and hence there is a need to make a new organization that will handle solely IDN related issues.[13] The full text of Mr. Fattal's letter can be viewed here.
In 2010, ICANN approved the .emarat TLD, considering arguments given by Fattal.[14]
Prior to publishing the new gTLD Application Guidebook, 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 clarify its use of the word 'terrorism' or omit it from the guidebook, as he believed that there were serious risks and implications involved in publishing this rule. Arabs and Muslims could interpret this as a racist act by ICANN, and it would thus be a violation of ICANN's mandate of being an international organization.[15] 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, approved at the ICANN 41 meeting held in Singapore in June, 2011.[16] Mr. Fattal is still of the view that this further reinforces any US control over ICANN, and thus he has worried that other countries might start thinking about creating their own internet root, which would be the end of a single, global Internet.[17]