ICANN Announces Deployment of IDN Program


                   WEB ADDRESSES IN MULTI-LANGUAGES

As we celebrate 40 years of the internet, the net will now truly be global. While one might argue that the internet is already global, drastic change is about to happen.

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has formally announced its plans for deployment of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) in the next few months. The announcement came at the meeting in Seoul, South Korea, in October.

ICANN, created on Sep. 18, 1998, was developed to oversee tasks that the U.S. government was performing subsequently, and to preserve stability for all internet users. Among the many important tasks performed, IP allocation is one of them.

Internet history is about to be made. Until now, international users have had to contend with a few problems. They had to use Latin characters in the domains and emails they were using. This meant having in their possession a keyboard that was Latin script friendly.

But in the very near future, international web users will be able to use a domain in their native script. This takes the burden away for users that previously had to face this challenge.

IDN’s will make it easier for adults and children to access the internet in their own native language, clearly making it equally accessible for all. Emails will be more accessible as well.

This enhances usage for schools, businesses, governments, research facilities, new organizations, and families.

This is a milestone for over half of internet users around the world, since they don’t use a Latin based script. International users will be able to describe domains in their own national language. IDN’s make it all possible. The proposed launch date for the IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process is Nov. 16, 2009.

“One world, one internet, everyone connected.”