ICANN Approves .IRAN (in Non-Latin)

penciling_in writes "CircleID reports that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has announced its approval of non-Latin string evaluation of 'Iran.' This approval will allow the availability of Iran's top-level domain in its own native language, Persian, also known as Farsi (that is, the domain name .IRAN, in non-Latin characters). According to ICANN, there are currently 33 requests for Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs), representing 22 languages, out of which 18 countries/territories have so far been approved."

Comments

Re:Show me the TLD

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, the stupid thing is Slashdot doesn't support it! Just try putting UTF-8 characters in a comment or any of the Unicode symbols.

Totally broken if you ask me. People have been whining about it for over a decade.

So?

[Myria]

As a sovereign nation, Iran has the same rights to a top-level domain as any other nation, and in her official language now that it is possible. That she is currently out of favor with the West should be irrelevant.

Besides, don't we want more Internet access for Iranians anyway?

Re:So?

[c6gunner]

Why in the world would you assume that the article has anything to do with the geopolitical situation? This is like someone writing an article about the price of Viagra coming down, and you yelling "STOP TALKING ABOUT MY ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION!!!". Chill out.

Re:So?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Why in the world would you assume that the article has anything to do with the geopolitical situation?

Maybe because even the freakin summary said that 18 other IDN's have already been approved.
If it weren't for the geopolitical situation, what makes the 18th approval worthy of note?

ICANN: Tower of Babel for the modern day?

[mykos]

I am all for giving people resources in their own language as a stop-gap measure, but in the big picture, it would be nice if we didn't re-segregate the world by language?

Re:ICANN: Tower of Babel for the modern day?

[Anonymous Coward]

you mean, rather than forcing billions of people around the world to continue using domain names in a foreign character set that they can’t read? “stop-gap?” Until what? Until English takes over the world? News flash: won’t happen. Along with lots of other people, a billion Chinese say otherwise.

Re:ICANN: Tower of Babel for the modern day?

[mysidia]

You have a problem with making Persian the one language used by the whole world?

Re:ICANN: Tower of Babel for the modern day?

[peppepz]

Being able to speak your own language has nothing to do with not being able to understand others' languages.

I believe computers should adapt to people's customs and not the opposite; current technology gives us the opportunity for this to happen more often than not, and localised domain names are a step in that direction.

Re:ICANN: Tower of Babel for the modern day?

[peppepz]

"Eradicating languages and cultures" is not "compatible with western individual freedoms".

Re:What the internet really needs

[mysidia]

Approval of Unicode 1F4A9 as a TLD

The internet domain name system needs to be re-parented; it's too short sighted and will be quickly obsoleted once we need to interact with aliens, space stations, or colonies on other planets.

All the existing TLDs should be moved to thid-level domains under .GL.E.MW. (GL for ground level, E for Earth, MW for Milky-Way Galaxy)

That will provide for proper DNS hierarchy when stations on other planets need to communicate, for example....

WWW.GOOGLE.GSO15.MA.MW. Referring to a Google site local to the internet community in geosynchronous orbit conduit #15 around Mars