Method, client device, server and computer readable medium for specifying and negotiating compression of uniform resource identifiers

A method (500), client device (700), server (800) and computer readable medium (900) provide a scheme for negotiating compression of universal resource identifiers. The method includes: (1) sending, by a client, a request to a server wherein the request includes an uncompressed universal resource identifier URI and a list of compression techniques of the client; (2) determining, by the server, an intersection of the list of compression techniques of the client and a list of compression techniques of the server and providing a response to the client that includes the intersection and information identified by the URI; (3) subsequently requesting, by the client, information wherein one of: (4) decompressing, by the server, the compressed URI using the compression technique indicated in the subsequent request; and (5) responding, by the server, wherein the response includes information requested as identified by the compressed URI.