A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts directories.
Title : Internationalization of Email Addresses
Author(s) : J. Klensin
Filename : draft-klensin-emailaddr-i18n-01.txt
Pages : 24
Date : 2003-10-24
Internationalization of electronic mail addresses is, if anything, more important than the already-completed effort for domain names. In most
of the contexts in which they are used, domain names can be hidden within or as part of various types of references. Email addresses, by contrast, are crucial: use of names of people or organizations as, or as part of, the email local part is, for obvious reasons, a well-established tradition on the network. Preventing people from spelling their names correctly is, in the long term, inexcusable. At the same time, email addresses pose a number of special problems -- they are more difficult than simple domain names in some respects, but actually easier in others. This document discusses the issues with internationalization of email addresses, explains why some obvious approaches are incompatible with the definitions and use of Internet mail, and proposes a solution that is likely to serve users and the network well for the long term.
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