Czech Internet users’ view on diacritics in domains remains unchanged. They still do not want it

81 % of corporate respondents and 68 % of ordinary Internet users were against the introduction of IDN (Internationalized Domain Names).

Prague, November 26, 2014 – For the fifth time in a row, the Czech Internet community refused the introduction of diacritics into the .CZ domain system. According to the public opinion survey conducted by the Markent company for the CZ.NIC Association, the administrator of the .CZ domain registry. 81 % of corporate respondents and 68 % of ordinary Internet users were against the introduction of IDN (Internationalized Domain Names).

A total of 1,781 organizations and 2,256 respondents from among the users were interviewed to map the opinion on diacritics in the Czech domain names. 81% of enterprises and 68% of users opposed. The former showed an increase of 10% compared to the last survey in 2012 and the share of the latter remained unchanged. The survey results represent a decisive factor for introduction or rejection of IDN by CZ.NIC.

“The rejection of IDN did not surprise us. The Czech public opinion concerning this question is very consistent and there is no indication that this situation should change in the future,” said Ondřej Filip, CEO of CZ.NIC. “The survey was not focused only on IDN — we also wanted to find out how the public perceives the Association and our projects. We were pleased by the high level of awareness about mojeID or the How to Use the Internet project. We were also happy to see that compared to previous years, respondents perceive us as a more efficient association that educates the general public.”

Regarding the IDN, among the top disadvantages spontaneously stated by the respondents were access complications for visitors from abroad and encouragement of cybersquatting.

The survey also shows that a typical supporter of IDN among individual users is a person aged 30 to 39, who comes from a town with 10 to 20 thousand inhabitants. Among enterprises, it is a company with 100 or more employees engaged in education, health care or industrial activities.

Detailed survey results including additional information related to IDN can be found at the URL www.háčkyčárky.cz.

About IDN

IDN (Internationalized Domain Name) is a system that enables Internet domain names to contain characters of national alphabets. The basic idea, which led to the creation of IDN, was to simplify communication and use of the Internet for those whose written language contains alphabetic characters not included in the English alphabet. IDN would find its greatest application in countries such as China or Japan. CZ.NIC has been attending to the IDN issue (i.e. the use of diacritical marks in domain names) for a long time. Technically, the Association is ready to introduce IDN right away. However, it will not be launched sooner than the interest among the user community presents the majority.