Updated: May 9, 2012 (Initial publication: April 24, 2012)
Breaking news
The "Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération" (AFNIC- the French Co-operative Association for Internet Names) allows the use of new characters.
http://www.thejournalofregulation.com/spip.php?article1428
In the same way that internationally, a private association ICANN, operates on Internet domain names, a number of domain names that are more specific to the France (such as "free" or "pm.") are managed by L’Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération (AFNIC- the French Co-operative Association for Internet Names). This association is composed of individuals but also of representatives of ministries. It has the normative authority of "naming", i.e. the power to allow the use of such or such letter. The alphabet is a convention, a set of standards as one another, also arbitrary and binding than another, also ideological and powerful than another. However, so far, only "low" letters could be used, it is - be a latin alphabet without accent. From May, 3 2012, the accents will be allowed. That is progress, that the association it's justified by the aim at becoming closer its standards of the French language and surnames.
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We estimated that the standardization activity is also essentially, in the available usable domain names as available accounting standards. The activity of "naming" is not free.
At the same time, we recalled that the language is a convention, a set of agreed standards. In a legal manner, we can observed that this normative activity has a private origin (the international association as ICANN), the French association integrated it in its denomination the fact that it operates in "cooperation", which refers to the theories of "co-regulation", taken away from the self-regulation often perceived as a capture of the system by its players.
More procedurally, the private regulator organises the enrichment procedure of domain names in their reconciliation to natural language by giving a priority, for avoiding the cybersquatting. Thus, for a few months, will be priority already holders of domain names "impoverished" whose the natural vocation is to find the natural wealth of the French language, for example accent on the "e" so far lacking which evokes the required pronunciation.
In this way, because computers "talk" more and more, the integration of sound in domain names, the legal defence of a kind of "right to the name", the need for integrity in written orality, involved this evolution. It is the only normative power of a semiprivate regulator.
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