Web Addresses may Adopt non-English Characters
Of the 1.6 billion Internet users worldwide, more than half use languages with character sets other than Latin.
The Internet may be getting friendlier for a significant chunk of the world. A proposal is up for a vote to let Web addresses use non-English characters.
The proposed change (PDF), known as Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), will allow the use of non-Latin characters in the entire address. Currently, such characters are allowed only in part of the address. IDNs will let people who write in Chinese, Korean, or Arabic use their own languages to surf the Web, and is expected to jump-start Internet use in many regions across the globe.
ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which is responsible for managing domain names on the Net, will review the historic, hot-button proposal on Friday at its six-day 36th International Public Meeting in Seoul. If approved, IDNs could kick in as early as mid-2010.
IDNs are not a new concept. They've been debated for at least a decade. Some doubted whether such a system could work. But countries like China have taken the lead in pushing for this change.
One of the challenges behind IDNs has been the use of translation technology to convert one character set to another to deliver the right address. But ICANN seems to have covered that base.
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