[Infowarrior] - Internet Addresses Can Use New Scripts

[Richard Forno]

October 31, 2009
Internet Addresses Can Use New Scripts
By CHOE SANG-HUN
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/technology/31net.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

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

In an action billed as one of the biggest changes in the Web’s four- 
decade history, the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned  
Names and Numbers — or Icann — voted Friday during its annual meeting,  
held in Seoul, to allow such scripts in Internet addresses.

The decision is a “historic move toward the internationalization of  
the Internet,” said Rod Beckstrom, Icann’s president and chief  
executive. “We just made the Internet much more accessible to millions  
of people in regions such as Asia, the Middle East and Russia.”

This change affects domain names — anything that comes after the dot,  
including .com, .cn or .jp. Domain names have been limited to 37  
characters — 26 Latin letters, 10 digits and a hyphen. But starting  
next year, domain names can consist of characters in any language. In  
some Web addresses, non-Latin scripts are already used in the portion  
before the dot. Thus, Icann’s decision Friday makes it possible, for  
the first time, to write an entire Internet address in a non-Latin  
alphabet.

Initially, the new naming system will affect only Web addresses with  
“country codes,” the designators at the end of an address name,  
like .kr (for Korea) or .ru (for Russia). But eventually, it will be  
expanded to all types of Internet address names, Icann said.

Some security experts have warned that allowing internationalized  
domain names in languages like Arabic, Russian and Chinese could make  
it more difficult to fight cyberattacks, including malicious redirects  
and hacking. But Icann said it was ready for the challenge.

“I do not believe that there would be any appreciable difference,” Mr.  
Beckstrom said in an interview. “Yes, maybe some additional potential  
but at the same time, some new security benefits may come too. If you  
look at the global set of cybersecurity issues, I don’t see this as  
any significant new threat if you look at it on an isolated basis.”

The decision, reached after years of testing and debate, clears the  
way for Icann to begin accepting applications for non-Latin domain  
names Nov. 16. People will start seeing them in use around mid-2010,  
particularly in Arabic, Chinese and other scripts in which demand for  
the new “internationalized” domain name system has been among the  
strongest, Icann officials say.

Internet addresses in non-Latin scripts could lead to a dramatic  
increase in the number of global Internet users, eventually allowing  
people around the globe to navigate much of the online world using  
their native language scripts, they said.

This is a boon especially for users who find it cumbersome to type in  
Latin characters to access Web pages. Of the 1.6 billion Internet  
users worldwide, more than half use languages that have scripts that  
are not based on the Latin alphabet.

Hong Jong-gil, an Internet industry analyst at Korea Investment and  
Securities in Seoul, said the new names would help children and old  
people who had not learned the Latin alphabet. But he did not foresee  
any dramatic increase in the number of Internet users because Internet  
penetration has less to do with whether one has to type in English- 
alphabet domain names and more to do with “whether you can afford a PC  
and your community has broadband access.”

Agencies that help companies and individuals get Internet domains  
welcomed the Icann decision, noting it would be good for their own  
businesses.

“This is great news for us. This opens a new demand for domain names,”  
said Yang Eun-hee, an official at Gabia.com, an Internet domain  
agency. “There will be a rush among businesses to get new local- 
language Web addresses to protect their brand names. These days, a big  
company typically has dozens or hundreds of domains for their  
products, and it will be quite a cost to get all the new names.”

Observers agree that the change could make a difference for many  
businesses. “A lot of companies will end up having double domains —  
the existing one in English and a new one in the local script,“ said  
Choi Kyoung-jin, an analyst at Shinhan Investment. “A Korean domain  
name may be useful for Koreans but it’s not for foreign customers.”

Users who do not use the Latin alphabet can now reach Web sites by  
asking search engines to provide their links.

But a change in the domain name policy has become inevitable, Internet  
industry officials said. For example, there are so many .com Web  
addresses that it has become next to impossible to find an English  
word or an intelligible combination of two English words not already  
in use, they said.

“Today’s decision opens up a whole new Internet territory,” Ms. Yang  
said. “The Internet will become more multi-lingual than before.”


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