ICANN - Set to Approve Internationalised Domain Names

Domain names are currently based on the LatinEnglish people understanding the new domains
alphabet. This is great for English speaking countriesI've seen many different character sets when using
such as the United States, United Kingdom andkeywords in cybercafes while traveling around.
Australia but what about countries that have theirSometimes you are only in a country for a few days
own characters.before moving on. I just do not know how outsiders
It is estimated that more than half of the 1.6 billionwill be able to use these domains. Having an English
Internet users online today use non-Latin charactersdomain name as well is just going to double up on
in their language. These people will be able to registereverything.
domain names in their local language very soon.English people have been very lucky on the Internet.
Will this just be another revenue raising exerciseImagine if the Internet was all in Chinese? Everyone
where companies have to register more domainwould have to learn Chinese otherwise they would
names to protect their intellectual property?not be able to do much on the Internet.
Support languagesConclusion
There is 17 languages to be introduced include Arabic,The technical work involved to accomplish this is a bit
Hebrew, Japanese and Chinese plus more.like introducing IPv6. These are both mighty tasks
I think it's going to be very confusing whenwhich I think need to be overcome to continue the
advertising these international domain names. Theygrowth of the Internet and open it up to more
will obviously be geographically targeted but alsocommunities.
towards the locals only.