title: Encoding non UTF-8 text in Parameters in ASP.NET MVC
body: <h3>Background</h3>
  
  <p>I have a web application that uses <code>ISO-8859-1</code> encoding. When I pass parameters using <code>Html.ActionLink()</code>, the value is decoded to <code>UTF-8</code>:</p>
  
  <p><code>Web.config</code>:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;globalization requestEncoding="iso-8859-1" responseEncoding="iso-8859-1"
                 fileEncoding="iso-8859-1" /&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><code>Index.aspx</code></p>
  
  <pre><code>This is a &lt;%= Html.ActionLink("test", "Read", new { name="Cosméticos" }) %&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>generates the following:</p>
  
  <pre><code>This is a &lt;a href="/Intranet/Read?name=Cosm%C3%A9ticos"&gt;test&lt;/a&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The problem is the value I receive in my controller is <code>UTF-8</code>, not <code>iso-8859-1</code>:</p>
  
  <p><code>TestController</code>:</p>
  
  <pre><code>public ActionResult Read(string name) {
    //name is "CosmÃ©ticos" here!
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <h3>Question</h3>
  
  <p>Why the string is not decoded to <code>Cosméticos</code>?</p>