code: private static String decodeURL(String url) {
      	try {
  			return URLDecoder.decode(url, UTF_8);
  		} catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
  		}
  		return null;
      }
docs: per http://www.w3.org/TR/html40/appendix/notes.html#non-ascii-chars this should be UTF-8 to provide for broadest compatibility