Internet Domain Names Go International
Non-Latin Internet domain names could be up by mid-2010.
The
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is finalizing plans
to introduce domain names that use non-Roman (or Latin) characters–that is,
Internet users in countries such as China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia will soon
be able to enter Web addresses in Asian, Cyrillic, Arabic, or other scripts. According
to a BBC story:
“Of the 1.6 billion internet users today worldwide, more than half
use languages that have scripts that are not Latin-based,” said Rod
Beckstrom at the opening of Icann’s conference in Seoul, South Korea.
“So
this change is very much necessary for not only half the world’s
internet users today but more than half, probably, of the future users
as the internet continues to spread.”
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The
news comes after years of controversy about the Internet’s de facto requirement
of basic literacy in English, which advocates have argued severely limits its
utility for the millions of people barely literate in local dialects in
countries such as India.
ICANN
initially approved plans for Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) in June
2008, but working out the technology behind it has proved extremely difficult.
In effect, Internet engineers had to create an entirely new “translation
system” for the Domain Name System, which transforms domain names such as
“technologyreview.com” into numerical IP addresses. Enabling the
system to recognize and translate an array of non-Latin characters into IP
addresses as well was a challenge. Though workarounds have existed in some Asian
countries, they were not internationally approved and didn’t necessarily work
on all computers or in all Web browsers.
ICANN
representatives say that the new system, which currently supports 16 different
non-Roman scripts, has been thoroughly tested and is ready to go. If the ICANN
board gives final approval next week, the agency could begin accepting
applications for internationalized domain names as early as November 16, and
the first websites using them could be up by the middle of next year.
