ICANN approves non-Latin domain names
The organization responsible for managing the assignment of domain names and IP addresses has approved a new plan to allow non-Latin characters in Web extensions.
Known as Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), the system is designed to globalize the Net so regions around the world can use their own local alphabet characters to surf in cyberspace, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, said Friday.
Calling IDNs the "biggest technical change" to the Internet since its birth 40 years ago, ICANN unanimously approved the plan on the final day of its six-day conference in Seoul.
IDNs will allow domain names to be to be written in native character sets, such as Chinese, Arabic, and Greek. In charge of managing domain names, ICANN has argued that IDNs are necessary to expand use of the Web in regions where people don't understand English. Since its inception, the Internet has been limited to the Latin character set used by the U.S. and many other nations.
"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 in a statement. "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."
To expedite the new plan, ICANN will launch a Fast Track process on November 16. At that time, the organization will begin accepting applications from countries for new top level domains, or Internet extensions, based on each nation's character set.
Initially, the change will apply only to local country codes, such as .kr for Korea and .ru for Russia. Major top level domains (TLDs) such as .com, .net., and .org won't see non-Latin editions just yet. But ICANN is pushing to make progress on these major TLDs and hopes to include them in the IDN system before long.
ICANN had discussed and debated IDNs for years, during which time much testing, development, and global cooperation were needed to jump start the new system.
"This is a culmination of years of work, tests, study and discussion by the ICANN community," said Thrush. "To see this finally start to unfold is to see the beginning of an historic change in the Internet and who uses it."
Lance Whitney wears a few different technology hats--journalist, Web developer, and software trainer. He's a contributing editor for Microsoft TechNet Magazine and writes for other computer publications and Web sites. You can follow Lance on Twitter at @lancewhit. Lance is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and he is not an employee of CNET. 
The Beginners guide to most languages is a skill set that most programmers own..........
The ownership should become topic at most DRM meetings 2010..........
salil.
I knew you could...
www.go?gle.com
(If this doesn't look right, I replaced one of the 'o's in "google" with U+043E, which looks practically identical).
Will appear as:
www.xn--gogle-kye.com
Which looks nothing like "www.google.com", so is unlikely to fool anyone.
now, they will have less chance to get phished since they now can use thier own character that they are fluent with. and some of those problem non-english speak had now moved to english-speaker. and they shout!! "it will add a nightmarish tool ~~~ bla bla.."
well now, it is fair game for everyone. you dont want to fall into phishing victim due to this language thing, answer is simple, learn other languages, as non-english speaks have been doing for .,.. I dont know how many years...
This is the beginning of the end.
The Latin alphabet is the international alphabet since Roman times. No more!
Open up the flood gates for lookalike names! Unleash the full unbridled fury of ID theft.
Suddenly.... the credit protection and lifelock companies will see an unlimited gain in their market.
And then wait for the fun to begin when the lifelock site gets duplicated.
On a serious note..... this doesn't bode well....
We shall see how this plays out...
www.?????.com
goògle.com, goógle.com, goôgle.com, goõgle.com, goögle.com
And many more!!!!!! Hooray!!!! From now on if somebody already has the domain name you want, no problem, just throw an accent in there. Time to go register mïcrosoft.com
It might be good for local use, but anything international- you know, like this thing called the 'internet', will make it pointless and cause more problems for those who have odd characters in their domain names.
Go ahead and do it. You only hurt yourself.
For those of us who use English (or something like it) we will now have to find out how to log those characters in. How to get the right kanji, for example, or some cyrillic characters...
**grins**
...and heaven help us if they approve the use of Klingonaase.
I'm not "English only" (unless you live where it is the primary language), but I can see some serious issues coming down the pike here.
- by November 1, 2009 4:35 PM PST
- This has to be one of the most difficult and dangerous decisions to make. On the one hand; the internet community ought really to bring nations who use non-Latin alphabets to a position of equality but on the other hand doing so will bring the internet to its knees. If the .com, .net .gov (and other popular TLDs are burdened with these new character sets the homographic attacks and socially engineered fraud that will follow will ruin internet trust model (such that it is) will dwindle to near zero.
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