International TLDs Now Allowed by ICANN

[webfreak08]

By the middle of next year, Internet surfers will be allowed to use Web addresses written completely in Chinese, Arabic, Korean and other non-Latin alphabets, the organization overseeing Internet domain names announced on Friday in a decision that could make the Web more accessible.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/technology/31net.html?ref=business

 

[SenseiSteve]

Thanks for the link. This has been long overdue. This next year should be very interesting.

 

[Artashes]

I read the article but do not fully understand. Do you still have to type out "www." ? The article says it applies to everything after the dot, but doesn't specify which dot...
I guess you can always drop writing "www." in the first place... ?

 

[webfreak08]

I agree with you Art. The article is written by someone who knows next to nothing about domain names.

Here's the ICANN story:
http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-30oct09-en.htm

This affects (cc)TLDs or extensions. So, I suppose in China instead of having .cn, they can now have .(CHINESE CHARACTERS).

 

[Artashes]

Which makes switching from language to language while typing in the URL a pain one place...

 

[bobchrist]

It's good news for those who want to create a website for targeting specific language/demography.

 

[Devoted Hosting]

International IDN domains has been brewing for a while now. It's nice to see that it's finally gone though, I agree that it'll be a good thing.