Dear DB-WG members, My name is Jan-Erik Eriksson, representing the ccTLD AX I would like to express our strong support for the continuance of the, currently beta state, attribute 'language:' for the inetnum and inet6num object type in the RIPE DB. Background: AX is the ISO country code for the Åland Islands. The Åland Islands is an autonomous, demilitarized and neutralized region belonging to Finland. Its official language is Swedish. Åland are governed according to the Act on the Autonomy of Åland and international treaties. The autonomy is well developed and in many ways Åland function like a sovereign state. The symbols of the autonomy can be seen in the own national flag, stamps, the Parliament building and internet top-level domain (.ax). Our special situation as a Swedish speaking area with the country of Finland have and still are imposing great challenges for s in the on-line world. Typically web services, ads, media and other on-line content is presented to our users in the wrong language. To solve these issues today the only way is to approach the presenter of that content, for instance Google, and lobby for them to handle this situation. As you all understand, this task is impossible considering the number of parties that we would need to contact. In this respect, the language attribute, if supported by the RIPE/Internet community, could serve as a de facto source of reference for both operators, content providers and geoip suppliers. We also believe there are other multi-language countries in Europe that could benefit from using this attribute, should there be a widespread adoption of its use. Sincerely, Jan-Erik Eriksson CTO Ålands Telekommunikaton Ab
Jan-Erik, On Wed, 20 Mar 2013 11:04:47 +0200 Jan-Erik Eriksson <jee@alcom.ax> wrote:
Our special situation as a Swedish speaking area with the country of Finland have and still are imposing great challenges for s in the on-line world. Typically web services, ads, media and other on-line content is presented to our users in the wrong language.
HTTP has had an "Accept-Language" option since HTTP/1.1, almost 14 years old now: http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html#sec14.4 It seems to be supported by all of the popular browsers, and presumably is straightforward to use on the web server side. Apparently this feature is not used? The reason I bring this up is because it seems like a much, MUCH better way of getting the correct language to the user. AIUI operating systems already set this to the system language by default, but of course users can tweak it.
To solve these issues today the only way is to approach the presenter of that content, for instance Google, and lobby for them to handle this situation. As you all understand, this task is impossible considering the number of parties that we would need to contact.
Google in particular is well-known for being ridiculous regarding localization. Anyone who has traveled has faced the annoyance of being presented with a screen of text in a language (or even a character set) that they can't read. For example, if I was to visit the Åland Islands I would not want Finish or Swedish. :) I guess my question is that if companies are going to ignore browser settings - which have the actual user language information - does it really make sense to add language information to IP databases? Cheers, -- Shane
HTTP has had an "Accept-Language" option since HTTP/1.1, almost 14 years old now:
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html#sec14.4
It seems to be supported by all of the popular browsers, and presumably is straightforward to use on the web server side.
Apparently this feature is not used?
Yes, in my experience it is mostly ignored.
I guess my question is that if companies are going to ignore browser settings - which have the actual user language information - does it really make sense to add language information to IP databases?
In my opinion, the correct place to store user language information is at the client. It is foolish to assume every user of an IP address block wants to see content in the same language, or to assume they even speak the same language. Statistically speaking, the language-attribute might be right most of the time, but certainly not all of the time, unlike settings made by the user of the browser. It seems to me that relying on some arbitrary location data to guess the desired language for content is pretty strong in the software community. I've even seen Windows software installing itself automatically in Finnish just because my date and time format was set in Finnish, ignoring system locale and location. I would rephrase the question above: If companies are already ignoring settings made by users, should we encourage this behaviour by providing more data for guesswork? I don't think we should. I'd also like to hear comments on how this works in countries like Belgium and Switzerland, where location based language assumptions are even more likely to go wrong. ____________________________________ Tero Toikkanen Nebula Oy, Finland
20 mar 2013 kl. 16:32 skrev Shane Kerr:
Jan-Erik,
On Wed, 20 Mar 2013 11:04:47 +0200 Jan-Erik Eriksson <jee@alcom.ax> wrote:
Our special situation as a Swedish speaking area with the country of Finland have and still are imposing great challenges for s in the on-line world. Typically web services, ads, media and other on-line content is presented to our users in the wrong language.
HTTP has had an "Accept-Language" option since HTTP/1.1, almost 14 years old now:
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html#sec14.4
It seems to be supported by all of the popular browsers, and presumably is straightforward to use on the web server side.
Apparently this feature is not used?
To some extent, I believe that it is. The question is, is that sufficient?
The reason I bring this up is because it seems like a much, MUCH better way of getting the correct language to the user. AIUI operating systems already set this to the system language by default, but of course users can tweak it.
To solve these issues today the only way is to approach the presenter of that content, for instance Google, and lobby for them to handle this situation. As you all understand, this task is impossible considering the number of parties that we would need to contact.
Google in particular is well-known for being ridiculous regarding localization. Anyone who has traveled has faced the annoyance of being presented with a screen of text in a language (or even a character set) that they can't read. For example, if I was to visit the Åland Islands I would not want Finish or Swedish. :)
Well, if you were roaming in our network from your mobile, your packet data connection would receive an IP from your home operator and that IP would (hopefully) have your preferred language attribute set to the correct value. :) If you were using WiFi at the hotel, the situation would be different. That said, I understand your point and agree that the HTTP header would give a better level of granularity. But that doesn't mean that it removes the justification for tools that work at a higher level.
I guess my question is that if companies are going to ignore browser settings - which have the actual user language information - does it really make sense to add language information to IP databases?
That's a valid concern. What we are seeing is that the adoption of geoip filtering and classification is increasing for a variety of services, not restricted to those delivered through a web browser. Some of these are using the country attribute of the RIPE DB as a source of information and from that attribute they make an assumption on the language. I see this as an escalating problem. I don't believe that the language attribute will be a magic bullet, but as a generic non-protocol dependent means of publishing language preferences it could be a sensible option for those who are looking at the RIPE DB today. It could be an addition to the toolbox that is available for mitigation further problems in this area. Cheers, -- Janne -- #: ------------- Ålcom ------------- Network Operations Center --------- #: Jan-Erik Eriksson mailto: jee@alcom.ax #: Ålcom phone: +358 18 525923 #: Servicegatan 12 fax: +358 18 14643 #: AX-22100 Mariehamn URL: http://www.alcom.ax
Hi, On Mar 21, 2013, at 3:36 am, Jan-Erik Eriksson <jee@alcom.ax> wrote: […]
What we are seeing is that the adoption of geoip filtering and classification is increasing for a variety of services, not restricted to those delivered through a web browser. Some of these are using the country attribute of the RIPE DB as a source of information and from that attribute they make an assumption on the language. I see this as an escalating problem.
Can you please expand on this? Which non-web services use GeoIP data to set language preferences rather than to manage territorial licensing or banking fraud? Do those services have clients and if so, is the right answer to put the information in the IP address registry or to work with the people who develop the clients to allow individual users to control the language settings themselves? RTegards, Leo
participants (4)
-
Jan-Erik Eriksson -
Leo Vegoda -
Shane Kerr -
Tero Toikkanen