ICANN finally makes good on multi-language domain name pledge

This week the Internet and ICANN took a big step forward by launching 11 test sites in languages that don’t use the Roman alphabet ( eg. the 26 letters used in English and most European languages). ICANN aka the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a privately held, non-profit organization which reports to the U.S. Department of Commerce and manages the assignment and regulation of domain names and IP addresses. The move is significant because the Roman alphabet and English has dominated the Internet since it was conceived. Critics have long contended the format is inherently discriminatory and limits accessiblity to global users because entering a URL requires use of the Roman Alphabet or English.

In brief, the Web uses Roman alphabet-based suffixes originating from mainly English word abbreviations – .COM .ORG, .NET, .MOBI, etc. – irrespective of whether the actual domain name is in another language such as Russian, Arabic or Japanese. Resultantly, millions of Internet users whose primary languages do not use the Romain-based alphabet are forced to use ‘foreign characters’ to access and navigate the Internet. ICANN’s IDN (international domain names) project has the potential to revolutionize Internet by finally allowing users from around the world to browse the Web in their native tongue.

There are implications for domain owners with bi-or-multilingual online audiences.

For Vadim Sloutsky, the changes mean he will have to pay more to register multiple domain names in multiple scripts for his Russian-language Toronto information website, torontovka.com.

“If I don’t do it, and somebody else does it, people will be misguided,” he said.

“It forces me as a business owner to go out and book that domain and pay that additional money for that domain name.” Otherwise someone could purchase torontovka.com in Russian Cyrillic letters and set up a competing site, he said.

While Internet users outside North America and other non-Western nations have been demanding international domain names for years, the U.S. government refused to let go of its unilateral administration of the Internet as recently as the 2005 UN World Summit on the Information Society and Internet Governance. Despite its pledge to pursue international domain names as early as 2000, Internet experts say ICANN never made the change a priority.

The changes are also expected to have implications for Verisgn  the U.S. company that control .COM domains, the extension that accounts for half of all the domains currently in use on the Internet (and many, many more that are currently undeveloped). A greater diversity of domain options and anticipated political disagreement over which nation, corporation or geographic area should control over the IDN specific to a particular nation is expected to unfold.

You can check out ICANN’s links that use native script for the body and suffix of the domain name(s) in 11 non-Roman languages including:

Arabic العربية
Persian فارسی
Chinese , Simplified 简体中文  and Traditional  繁體中文
Russian Русский
Greek Ελληνικά
Japanese 日本語
Yiddish ייִדיש

According to ICANN, the pages will allow users to create subpages, leave comments and test how well the international domain names link to other pages. The organization expects to begin offering working addresses that use non-Roman suffixes toward the end of 2008.

More information:

ICANN Official Press Release
http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-15oct07.htm

Wall Street Journal article, What’s the Hindi Word from .COM? http://online.wsj.com/public/article/……