Non-Latin characters are to be used in future

The organisation that oversees them has backed the use of non-Latin characters from languages like Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Hindi and Korean.

Up to now, addresses have been limited to the 26 characters in the Latin alphabet used in English (A-Z) as well as 10 numbers and the hyphen.

That has meant internet users with little or no knowledge of English may still have to type in Latin characters to access their country’s web pages.

But now, web addresses using characters from different languages will be available by mid-2010, including TLDs (top-level domains such as “.com”)

Their use has been approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) board at a meeting in Seoul, South Korea.

Nations and territories will be able to apply for internet address endings reflecting their name and using their national language from November 16, when ICANN’s Internationalised Domain Name (IDN) fast track process begins.

Major shake-up of web addresses planned

If the applications meet certain criteria, including government and community support and a stability evaluation, the applicants will be approved to start accepting registrations for domain names.

More than half the world’s internet users do not use English or a Latin-based language as their first language and this move will see around 100,000 new characters available for use in IDNs.

Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of ICANN, said: “The coming introduction of non-Latin characters represents the biggest technical change to the internet since it was created four decades ago.”

Here at Insta Host we believe that a review after the first wave of applicants will give an early indication of how this change may change the evolution of the Internet, giving a glimpse of the type of TLDs which may come into use.  Whilst it may seem sound business strategy for a company to run or register a domain TLD such as “.host” the real question is whether the public will trust and use the new domains – this will be the true indicator of how “exciting” this change may be!.

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Changes promise to give edge to businesses sharp enough to embrace them

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the international body that oversees the structure of the internet, will liberalise the market for domain name extensions – the .com or .uk part of a web address.

This means that anyone, in theory, can apply to operate an extension.

Historically, companies have considered their domain to be a critical part of their brand identity.

Some domains have been sold for millions of dollars, such as sex.com which was reportedly sold for $14m.

Multinational companies often register up to 20,000 different variations of their brand in order to try and stop opportunists exploiting it.

However, the vast majority of businesses are unprepared for imminent changes to the internet.

This was surprising given that there are significant possibilities which were instantly recognised by companies once we explained what market liberalisation will mean.

A massive 81% said liberalisation will be innovative, three-quarters stated it will be advantageous, and two-thirds said it will be exciting when launching a campaign online.

Toyota, for example, could register europe.toyota and usa.toyota as well as set up sites for individual brands (highlander.toyota) and use targeted domains for different markets such as customers and suppliers (suppliers.toyota, dealers.toyota, buying.toyota).

Indicators suggest that consumers will embrace this change.

As part of the same research, we interviewed 1,000 consumers and one in five (19%) said an extension such as .nike or .microsoft would be memorable.

Considering only 24% think .com is memorable, this shows the future potential for branded top-level domains.

But before businesses can reap any rewards, the internet industry must address many concerns.

There is real fear that cybersquatters will cash in on liberalisation by registering all the best domain names to drive visitors to advertising sites.

Criminals could also use domain names that resemble trademarks in order to launch phishing attacks or to lure users to illicit sites.

For us, this is an exciting change. But if liberalisation is to bring the benefits it promises, it needs to be handled carefully.

As soon as the billboards, squatters and criminals move in, all the prime properties and interested web visitors will move out.

All stakeholders need to embrace a mature and multi-stakeholder approach to governance of new domain extensions.

This includes registrars and registries whose commercial interests sometimes conflict with the goal of keeping the domain space from being polluted.

ICANN is expected to start taking applications for new top-level domains between January and March 2010 and anticipates between 300-500.

A number of groups have already announced interest for city top-level domains such as .berlin, .paris, .london and .nyc.

Industry or activity-specific names are also expected to get attention, for example for .music, .sport or .movie.

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In the same way that the countries of the world change over time, so do domain extensions, with Yugoslav (.yu) domains being largely replaced with domain extensions for the newly created countries which were formed from the break-up of Yugoslavia such as .si for Slovenia and the upcoming .me extension for Montenegro. Then there are extensions which are just created as the need arises such as the .eu extension for the European Union which has been live for a few years. A complete list of the domain extensions currently approved by ICANN along with links to the various registry sites is available at:

http://www.norid.no/domeneregistrering/index.en.html

Many domain registries have specific rules on who can register a certain domain and sometimes restrictions on what type of site it must be, or in the case of .mobi domains how the site should be visible to users and on what type of devices. Some registries issue domains rather than allow them to be registered at all such as .mil for US Military websites, and some will only allow the person who wishes to own the domain to register it directly with the registry. Others insist you are a resident of the country involved before you can register a domain with them. In essence, each domain registry is free to make up its own rules and regulations on what can be registered and who can register them.

As you can see that makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for us to be able to register some domain extensions, but that does not mean that we cannot host them. Providing customers can register the domain involved themselves and have it placed onto our nameservers, we can host any domain extension with the use of a domain reference on any paid-for hosting account and the nameservers to use are listed in our Support Database.

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