First Full IDN Domain Names Now Online

“Until this week, Latin characters were required to access a
complete domain name on the Internet. That has now changed as the
first full Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) are now live,
enabling users for the first time ever to access websites with an
entirely non-Latin character set.

“The first IDNs that have been approved and are now live use
Arabic characters and have been deployed for the Egypt, Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates country code Top-Level Domains
(ccTLDs). The deployment of the IDN ccTLDs marks a major milestone
for the Internet and for the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN) following a fast-track process that for
deployment that began in late 2009 after years of discussion.

“”I think everyone just views this as a very positive
development,” Tina Dam, senior director of IDNs at ICANN, told
InternetNews.com. “In terms of who would be first, sure, there was
a lot of focus on that, and a lot of countries wanted to be
first.”

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