Internet set for change with non-English addresses

[INVIGOR]

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[yanni]

Are they talking about extensions?

Yes.

 

[bwhhisc]

Don't we already have "non-english" names and IDN's? Are they talking about extensions? http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20091026/ap_on_hi_te/as_tec_internet_names

In a nutshell, what ICANN approved this week was to allow countries to "internationalize after the dot" allowing Top Level Domains (ccTLD) such as .cn, .kr and .jp (china, korea and japan) to be able to have their URLs in their native script. At some point in the future, the gtld's (.com, .net, .biz) will probably do the same.

You are indeed correct, idns have existed since 2000, but sadly there was little recognition and virtually no Browser support until 2007 with release of IE7, so they really never came into mainstream use. Starting in the year 2000, and over the next few years registations were made available for IDNs as:
foreign language.com
foreign language.net
foreign language.cn, .jp, .de, .biz, .tv etc.

These domains look like these below, and extensions can vary. They are "read" by the computer as punycode which stays within the domains system of 1-9, 0, and - "dash". The first example below "Beauty Clinic" when converted to punycode is read by the internet as xn--pcka3d5a7l134xuouc.com but also displayed and used as: 美容クリニック.com

Japanese
美容クリニック.com (or .jp) – Beauty Clinic
xn--pcka3d5a7l134xuouc.com

Chinese
在线电影.com (or .cn) – Online videos
xn--3dss6qu1scxi.com

Korean
디자인문구.com – Stationery
xn--2e0b58l0ofn7nod.com

Arabic
صندوق.com – Fund
xn--ugbl4bol.com

Greek
παιδεία.com - Education
xn--kxadbkfw1c.com

Russian
плазменный.com – Plasma
xn--80akfjgiial1k.com

интернет-кафе.com – Internet-Cafe
xn----8sbnacnrub3aue3a.com
notice how the - (dash) makes the prefix on the punycode xn---- versus xn--
in some languages (like Arabic) it is often hard to see the dash so this is telltale.

Hebrew
משפטי.com - Legal
xn--debcnyy.com

Thai
ของที่ระลึก.com – Souvenir
xn--12cbp8dycm6c1a7bn8q.com

German
arbeitsverträge.com – Labour Contracts
xn--arbeitsvertrge-hib.com

**disclaimer, these spellings are taken from a recent idn sale and no guarantee spelling is correct, just shown here as examples of IDNs.

The BIG DEAL this week is that ICANN has now opened up for the root to accept idn.idn (foreign language.foreign lanaguge) domains. It will probably not effect languages such as French, Spanish, German, etc. where .com fits fine. Here are some of the SPECULATIONS of what .com, .net, .cn, .jp, etc. might be aliased to:

Chinese:
.中国 : .cn
.公司 : .com.cn
Korean:
.한국 : .kr
.회사 : .com
.그물: .net
Japanese:
.コム : .com
.日本 : .jp
.ネット: .net
Russian:
.Ком : .com
.нет : .net
Bulgarian:
.бг : .bg
Hebrew:
קום : .com
נט : .net
Arabic:
كوم : .com
نت : .net
Thai:
.คอม: com
.เน็ต .net

note that .cn already defaults to .中国 if you are viewing from within China.

There will be some "new" cctlds that will be idn.idn, and .com, .net and more are expected to be able to be used as .com or be aliased to their equivalent in most languages.

So, in a nutshell all the ruckus is about the approval of "idn.idn"

 

[INVIGOR]

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[Jimpapa]

thanks for this explanation i was also confused ...thanks for taking that time to explain