ICANN and ALETI sign agreement to advance Universal Acceptance across Latin America and the Caribbean
ICANN and ALETI have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote Universal Acceptance (UA) of domain names and email addresses throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. The partnership aims to strengthen the region’s technical capacity and ensure that digital tools and online services support all languages, scripts, and domain formats, fostering a more inclusive and multilingual Internet.
On 23 October 2025, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Federación de Asociaciones de Latinoamérica, El Caribe y España de Entidades de Tecnología de Información y Comunicación (ALETI) formalised a new collaboration through a Memorandum of Understanding. The agreement focuses on advancing Universal Acceptance (UA), the principle that all valid domain names and email addresses, regardless of script, language, or length, should function across digital systems equally.
This initiative supports ICANN’s broader goal of ensuring a global internet that is inclusive, multilingual, and accessible. By partnering with ALETI, a federation representing national technology chambers and ICT associations across Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain, and Portugal, ICANN aims to deepen its engagement with the region’s software and private-sector communities.
The cooperation builds on ALETI’s previous participation in UA Day 2024, during which both organisations identified the need for greater awareness and technical readiness for UA implementation among software developers and digital innovators.
Under the new MoU, ICANN and ALETI will jointly deliver:
- Technical training on Universal Acceptance and Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs);
- Capacity-building workshops for developers, system integrators, and local technology firms;
- Awareness campaigns to encourage software vendors and digital-service providers to adopt UA-ready practices.
The aim is to ensure that ALETI’s wide membership network, spanning multiple countries and industry sectors, can disseminate UA knowledge, improve local technical readiness, and integrate multilingual functionality into digital products and services.
The agreement also supports broader digital-transformation objectives in Latin America and the Caribbean, helping the region’s technology ecosystem ensure that domain names and email addresses in diverse languages and scripts operate seamlessly across platforms. This is particularly important as Internet growth in the region increasingly involves users whose primary languages are Spanish, Portuguese, and indigenous languages.
Rodrigo de la Parra, ICANN’s Vice President for Stakeholder Engagement and Managing Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, emphasised that the partnership reflects ICANN’s commitment to collaboration with industry associations:
‘By building technical capacity among software professionals, we’re taking an important step toward Universal Acceptance readiness in the region.’
ALETI President Juan Francisco Martínez Lara highlighted the significance of the agreement for the regional ICT community:
‘Together, we will strengthen the region’s digital ecosystem, equipping our members with the skills to lead in technological innovation and Internet development.’
Sarmad Hussain, ICANN’s Senior Director for IDN and UA Programs, noted that the cooperation will help ensure future digital tools “support users in their own language and script,” underscoring that UA and IDNs are essential for an Internet reflecting “the world’s linguistic and cultural diversity.”
Long-term collaboration and regional impact
The MoU sets out a long-term framework for collaboration in technical, educational, and outreach domains. It reinforces both ICANN’s and ALETI’s shared commitment to an Internet that is secure, stable, and truly global in scope.
For Latin America and the Caribbean, this cooperation is expected to play a pivotal role in:
- Increasing UA readiness across national technology sectors,
- Enhancing the region’s ability to deploy multilingual Internet technologies, and
- Supporting regional integration within the global digital economy.
By promoting Universal Acceptance, ICANN and ALETI aim to ensure that the internet’s next phase of growth accommodates every user, language, and culture, helping to make the digital future of the region more open, resilient, and inclusive.
For further information on UA initiatives, visit icann.org/ua.
