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Icann approves non-Latin-character Internet-domain names
By Robert Daniel, MarketWatch
Last Update: 10:06 AM ET Nov 1, 2009
TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) -- The agency that governs the Internet approved the introduction of complete Internet-domain names in languages that use non-Latin characters.
Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers, in a statement called the move "the biggest technical change to the Internet since it was created four decades ago."
On Nov. 16, after "years of intense technical testing, policy development, and global cooperation" for the process, nations and territories can apply for Internet extensions that reflect their names and are made up of characters from their national languages, Icann said.
The Friday announcement came as Icann, based in Marina del Rey, Calif., wrapped up a five-day meeting in Seoul, the agency's 36th public meeting.
Up to now, domain names had to use the 26 Latin letters in the English alphabet as well as 10 numerals and the hyphen, the Associated Press reported.
Technical efforts have enabled display of parts of Internet addresses in other scripts, but the two-letter suffixes had to be made up of those 37 characters, AP reported. The change enables those suffixes to be displayed in local languages as well, reports say.
The approval for non-Latin characters applies for now only to domain names connected with the two-letter country codes, like .ru for Russia and .cn for China.
The so-called generic top-level-domain suffixes, like .com, .net and .gov, will remain Latin-characters-only for now, reports say.
Languages that could become available in 2010 for Internet-site names include Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Hindi and Korean, reports say.
A number of issues are associated with the addition of non-English domain names, reports say.
One is that to protect their brands, companies may feel pressured to register their current domain names in any number of non-Latin-script languages, PC World reported.
The magazine also noted that some characters in non-Latin scripts appear similar to those of Latin-alphabet characters. Substituting a non-Latin character for the similar Latin character creates a unique URL -- and the potential for site-spoofing mischief, PC World said.
In addition, AP suggested that software developers will have to ensure that their applications work with the non-Latin scripts.
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