First non-Latin domains launched

ICAAN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, has announced the launch of the web's first internationalised domain names - that's domain names in non-English language scripts, to you and us.


The first three countries to get their own domains written in Arabic script are Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Users with corresponding language keyboards (or using services like Google's vitual keyboard) will now be able to set up and visit domains from these three countries without having to use anglicised versions of the site's address.

ICAAN first confirmed they would be introducing non-Latin script domain names in 2009, and since then has received applications for web addresses in Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Tamil and Thai, among others.

The new addresses are to be supported by all major browsers, including Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari, Opera and Firefox, although each new language will have to first be added to the browser's list of supported character sets. ICAAN have confirmed that these three countries are the first of many set to get their own domains, with Russia and China reported to be next in line.



Source - ICAAN