Nathan

Internet, Technology

Up until now, we only have domain names made up of purely Latin characters. Soon, the Internet will start hosting addresses with characters such as: ñ, æ, ä. On October 30, 2009,  the new Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) Fast Track Process by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) board was approved. It’s a start of a worldwide revolution that surely makes history. With this move, we are one step closer to the complete internationalization of the Internet.

“The coming introduction of non-Latin characters represents the biggest technical change to the Internet since it was created four decades ago,” said ICANN chairman Peter Dengate Thrush. “Right now Internet address endings are limited to Latin characters – A to Z. But the Fast Track Process is the first step in bringing the 100,000 characters of the languages of the world online for domain names.”

- ICANN Announcement

As of now, it’s still only the approval of a process (Fast Track) that will start on November 16. At that time, ICANN will start accepting applications for extensions reflecting the local language and alphabet. If the application meets the set criteria, such as applicability and receptivity, then the request is approved for use.

For more information on the IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process, visit ICANN’s site.

What I Think

This move allows a lot more users, especially those who have not been able to use Latin characters, to access the Internet, maybe for the first time. This also allows for a more diverse collection of sites that cater to a larger crowd who use localized alphabets. However, I guess it would be harder for those who may have to re-write code and scripts in order to accommodate this change. Thinking out loud, would using an IDN for your site mean that you are restricting your visitors? Since most people are accustomed to using Latin characters and using top-level domains such as .com and .net, would it mean that using a localized address limiting your options for a wider audience? Trade-offs. I guess this works well for sites that are catered to the local audience, just like using domain extensions with the country code at the end, just like .com.ph.

What do you think about this? Post your thoughts in the comments.

Related posts:

1. Create and Host Your Own Domain for Free in Less Than 10 Steps For personal sites, it's often not a priority to create...
2. Happy 40th Birthday Internet! Today, 40 years ago, at 10:30pm, the first ever message...
3. Is Your Username Still Unique? Find Out With millions and millions of users on the Internet, it's...
4. October on Martian Footprints October went by pretty fast, no? I want to say...
5. Find and Track “Conversations” Across the Web using UberVU Ever felt the need to track topics, conversations, and what...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.