If anyone can, ICANN can
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers says it's pushing forward a proposal for the "internationalisation" of domain names and URLS, meaning users will be able to key in URL's using non Latin characters, including Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic.
The initiative has been in the pipeline for some time now, but was concretely presented by the ICANN board at a meeting in Seoul, Korea earlier this week, along with a proposed launch date for the IDN ccTLD (country-code Top Level Domains) Fast Track Process.
ICANN - a California nonprofit set up in 1998 - sees it as its role to make the Internet accessible to all nationalities and language groups, especially as millions and potentially billions of first time users from the developing world log on to the net for the first time.
The organisation has long played the role of Internet plumber, in charge of coordinating the Internet's address system, and setting domain names. It now seems multi-lingual domains should be tipping up by the first quarter of next year, with northeast Asians, Arabic speakers, Indians, Farsi speakers, southern Asians, Bulgarians, Greeks Russians and others all getting in on the act.
ICANN president and CEO, Rod Beckstrom, said the IDN programme, set to launch on November 16 "is moving one step closer to reshaping the global Internet landscape."
