Domainincite News：In a significant policy shift, ICANN has announced that it will cease funding and staff support for the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) starting June 2025. The UASG, founded in 2015, was created to promote Universal Acceptance (UA) — the principle that all domain names and email addresses should work equally, regardless of script or top-level domain (TLD).
The move, disclosed by ICANN CEO Kurt Lindqvist in a blog post, effectively signals the end of the UASG’s decade-long mission, though ICANN insists it remains committed to UA in principle. Lindqvist cited the group’s original charter, which envisioned a 10-year awareness-raising project, and confirmed that with that timeframe complete, ICANN’s financial and logistical support will now end.
“With the focus changing to implementation work, ICANN will no longer provide funding or staff support to the UASG after June 2025,” Lindqvist wrote.
ICANN has not publicly disclosed the exact level of funding previously allocated to UASG, but annual budgets suggest spending between $500,000 and $1.4 million, a sizable investment now under scrutiny amid ICANN’s broader cost-cutting measures.
This development aligns with signals from the ICANN 82 board resolution in March, which hinted at a winding down of UASG operations. Instead of continuing with the independent UASG, ICANN will establish a UA Expert Working Group, composed of invited and nominated community members, to provide strategic guidance on UA adoption moving forward.
While the UASG’s efforts were crucial in raising awareness about internationalized domain names and making internet infrastructure more inclusive, much of the hands-on technical progress has been driven directly by ICANN engineers. Notably, they played a pivotal role in prompting platforms like Twitter and WhatsApp to update their systems for UA compliance.
Additionally, ICANN has been proactive in working with smaller open-source projects — many of which power key internet infrastructure — to ensure compatibility with newly introduced TLDs across all scripts.
Despite pulling support from UASG, ICANN will continue to back initiatives like UA Day, a series of global educational events aimed at promoting Universal Acceptance.
Would you like a timeline of the UASG’s major milestones since 2015?
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