IAMAI launches campaign to promote website URLs in Indian languages
Debashis Sarkar | Gadgets Now | Updated: Aug 28, 2018, 08:05PM IST
The English language is mostly dominating the internet for Indian users. And even if you are browsing the internet in Hindi, Bengali or any other language, the website address or URL is registered in English. Now, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is seeking comments from the public for the use of Indian languages as website URLs and become Universal Acceptance (UA) compliant. For example, instead of typing Google.in for accessing Google India, people should have the freedom to type "गूगल.भारत" (Google.Bharat in Hindi) to access the Google India website in their desired language.
ICANN is seeking comments for support of nine Indic scripts – Bengali, Devanagari, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Tamil and Telugu. These additions will allow domain names to include Indian languages and websites like খবর.খবর (news.news in Bengali) or समाचार. समाचार (news.news in Hindi) can exist.
While India has one of the largest internet users globally, content in Indic languages is estimated to be less than 0.1%. According to industry body Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), approximately 750 million literate rural Indians are not using the internet. The IAMAI has today launched a awareness campaign to spread awareness about the criticality of Universal Acceptance (UA) to facilitate the adopt of websites URL in Indian languages.
"This initiative gains further prominence as enabling local language content on the Internet will lead to a growth of 39% in the current Internet user base. Potentially, 660 million people would access internet if it were offered in the local language," said IAMAI in a statement.
For those unaware, UA is the foundational requirement to get multilingual Internet in which users around the world can navigate entirely in a language of their choice. UA is the concept of removing all technical barriers that might hinder a user from accessing any url/website in any top-level domain from any web browser, email client or other internet application on a connected device. This will also allow email addresses in local languages as well.
ICANN is seeking comments for support of nine Indic scripts – Bengali, Devanagari, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Tamil and Telugu. These additions will allow domain names to include Indian languages and websites like খবর.খবর (news.news in Bengali) or समाचार. समाचार (news.news in Hindi) can exist.
While India has one of the largest internet users globally, content in Indic languages is estimated to be less than 0.1%. According to industry body Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), approximately 750 million literate rural Indians are not using the internet. The IAMAI has today launched a awareness campaign to spread awareness about the criticality of Universal Acceptance (UA) to facilitate the adopt of websites URL in Indian languages.
"This initiative gains further prominence as enabling local language content on the Internet will lead to a growth of 39% in the current Internet user base. Potentially, 660 million people would access internet if it were offered in the local language," said IAMAI in a statement.
For those unaware, UA is the foundational requirement to get multilingual Internet in which users around the world can navigate entirely in a language of their choice. UA is the concept of removing all technical barriers that might hinder a user from accessing any url/website in any top-level domain from any web browser, email client or other internet application on a connected device. This will also allow email addresses in local languages as well.
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