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ICANN’s Name Game

Get ready to go native. Beginning this year, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the international body that doles out Web addresses, will allow non-Latin characters in top-level domain names, the bits of a Web address found to the right of the "dot" in, for instance, .com. Domain names will be allowed ...

By David Francis

October 8, 2009, 6:35 PM

Get ready to go native. Beginning this year, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the international body that doles out Web addresses, will allow non-Latin characters in top-level domain names, the bits of a Web address found to the right of the "dot" in, for instance, .com. Domain names will be allowed in characters from 11 non-Latin alphabets, including Arabic, Chinese, Persian, and Russian. ICANN executive Tina Dam, who is overseeing the change, says it will allow people to communicate in their native alphabet, removing language as a barrier to access for millions. But ICANN has a second goal; it hopes to keep China from "splitting the root," tech-speak for essentially creating a second Internet. Beijing unilaterally began allowing people to register Chinese-language domain names in 2006, a move that threatened to confuse the Internet's core servers, which direct all traffic. ICANN's new policy should hold the Internet together, for now.

Get ready to go native. Beginning this year, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the international body that doles out Web addresses, will allow non-Latin characters in top-level domain names, the bits of a Web address found to the right of the "dot" in, for instance, .com. Domain names will be allowed in characters from 11 non-Latin alphabets, including Arabic, Chinese, Persian, and Russian. ICANN executive Tina Dam, who is overseeing the change, says it will allow people to communicate in their native alphabet, removing language as a barrier to access for millions. But ICANN has a second goal; it hopes to keep China from "splitting the root," tech-speak for essentially creating a second Internet. Beijing unilaterally began allowing people to register Chinese-language domain names in 2006, a move that threatened to confuse the Internet’s core servers, which direct all traffic. ICANN’s new policy should hold the Internet together, for now.