Stage set for domains population surge

The global domain population is set to rocket next year, following moves to fast-track the delegation of non-Roman-formatted country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs). Launched this week by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Internationalised Domain Names (IDN) scheme aims to reach communities that have been disenfranchised by the use of Roman characters in URLs.

IDN is likely to trigger a surge of fresh domain registrations by groups and individuals who prefer to work in their native scripts. At this early stage, ICANN is aiming to establish which entities in the relevant countries will be licensed to act as registrars for the new, non-Roman domains. On 16 November, it invited internet experts who wish to earn those licences to submit URL extensions that best represent their countries. ICANN will then consider and evaluate the submissions, award the licences and roll out the new ccTLDs during 2010.

News of the impending landrush, which is set to unfold on multiple fronts, follows last month's 10th anniversary of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). As IP Review Online reported, WIPO director Dr Francis Gurry used the occasion to warn of growing complexity in ICANN's domain name system, and the need for the UDRP to adapt to that complexity.

In a video address on ICANN's website, the group's president and CEO Rod Beckstrom said: 'Over half the users of the internet today don't use a Latin-based script as their native language.' While they have had no choice but to accustom themselves to typing out web names in Roman characters, Beckstrom feels that these users have always had an appetite 'to use their keyboards in their native languages and their native scripts to describe their own companies, schools, groups and organisations'. In Beckstrom's view, this makes IDN 'one of the most exciting changes in all of ICANN's 11-year history'.

Speaking in the same address, ICANN chairman Peter Densgate Thrush said that, in the current URL portfolio, there are only 37 characters available - namely the Roman alphabet, the numbers zero to nine and the hyphen. 'Only 26 of them [are available] at the Top Level,' he said, '[but] the IDN programme will encompass close to 100,000 characters.' These will include Chinese - both traditional and simplified - plus Arabic, Hebrew and a host of other scripts in non-Roman formats.

'Internationalised domain names will mean that people can get their name, in their language, to experience their internet,' Thrush added. 'Very soon, instead of typing .kr into their browsers, Korean speakers will be able to put in Hangul characters for their variation of .kr. So the internet will open up for millions more people in Korea - and billions more across the globe.'

Beckstrom noted that ICANN technicians have been working towards IDN for nine years. 'It's about making the internet more global and more accessible,' he said. 'It's simply one world; one internet - everyone connected.'

To find out more about the IDN scheme, and to obtain materials for taking part in the evaluation process, visit www.icann.org.