The Internet Society (ISOC) Ghana Chapter and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) have educated businesses and other entities on Universal Acceptance (UA) of Internet Domain Names at a workshop in Accra.
The UA ensures that all Domain Names and Email Addresses can be used by all Internet-enabled applications, devices and systems.
Whilst Internationalised Domain Names (IDN) enable people around the world to use domain names in their local languages and scripts.
Mr Marcus Adomey, President of ISOC Ghana Chapter underscored the need for businesses to configure their systems to accept emails from every International Domain Name System.
He noted that there were several languages with different alphabets on the internet and when emails are sent in such languages and the businesses’ systems were not configured to read it, the mail gets rejected.
He said this was not appropriate therefore, there was a need to create more awareness in communities on the importance of configuring servers.
Mr Adomey made this call in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Accra, on the side-lines of a workshop on UA and IDN, hosted by ISOC Ghana and supported by the ICANN.
Its registered participants from the Association of software developers, Association of Information Technology (IT) professionals and Association of IT Managers from Government’s ministries, departments and agencies, and other entities.
Among the objectives of the workshop was to equip participants to take appropriate action in their respective area for Universal acceptance of domains names and email addresses.
Mr Adomey said increasingly, implementing UA would help correct language unbalances, and bring the cultural, social and economic benefits of the Internet to everyone, not least the software and application providers who accept the new domain names.
He said it would also unlock the potential of new generic top-level domains to foster competition, consumer choice and innovation in the domain name industry.
Mr Yaovi Atohoun, Stakeholder Engagement and Operations Manager at ICANN Africa, also stated that the role of the Internet was key for businesses, government and academia.
“Internet users have to be aware that domain names on the internet could be in several languages and longer than they were some years ago,” he said.
“There is a need for technical people to do some configuration and also for the community in general to spread the word, thus, creating more awareness”, he added.
