ICANN Approves Non-Latin Characters in Domain Names

Today, October 30th, ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers has anounced and approved the creation of domain names in non-latin based characters. According to industry sources this is the biggest change to the global internet since its birth in the labratory 40 years ago!

 When the Internet was originally created it was developed in English.  A person sitting in an Indian village has to type in an English domain name if they want to find an Indian website. By allowing users to create and register domains in their native character sets, from Chinese to Arabic to Greek and Hindi, ICANN is extending the reach of the internet to remote parts of the world where English is neither spoken or read.

Marketers with international presence should consider investigating this change as ICANN will soon take petitions for domains and TLDs that will be called IDN (Internationalized Domain Names) in non-latin character sets. Brand protection and extension into these new foreign language domains may become critical factors in extending a product's reach and audience.

Cheers!
-Len Shneyder
Director of Partner Relations
& Industry Communications