ICANN Approves Non-Latin ccTLDs

Several readers including alphadogg tipped the news that ICANN has approved non-Latin ccTLDs at its meeting in Seoul. "Starting in mid-November, countries and territories will be able to apply to show domain names in their native language, a major technical tweak to the Internet designed to increase language accessibility. On Friday, the Internet's addressing authority approved a Fast-Track Process for applying for an IDN (Internationalized Domain Name) and will begin accepting applications on Nov. 16. The move comes after years of technical testing and policy development... Currently, domain names can only be displayed using the Latin alphabet letters A-Z, the digits 0-9 and the hyphen, but in future countries will be able to display country-code Top Level Domains (cc TLDs) in their native language. ... 'The usability of IDNs may be limited, as not all application software is capable of working with IDNs,' ICANN said in a 59-page proposal (PDF) dated Sept. 30 that describes the [application] process." Reader dhermann adds, "Great, now even less chance I can identify NSFW links before they are blocked by my work's big brother app and my boss is notified... again."

Comments

Speeding the path to IPv6?

[expat.iain]

I wonder what impact this will have on the ever decreasing amount of IPv4 addresses available. If it means that this pushes us towards a greater uptake of IPv6, it can only be good. For too long ISPs have been reluctant to encourage the rollout of IPv6 connectivity, all the time turning a blind eye to this problem of diminishing IPv4 addresses. Perhaps with a rush for new domains there will be a significant drop in the number of free IPv4 addresses and this will spur the uptake of IPv6.