A DECISION by the authority that regulates internet names to allow the use of non-Latin characters has been described as the “biggest technical change to the internet” since it was created 40 years ago.
The move means that complete web addresses using scripts such as Hebrew, Sanskrit and Korean, will be permitted, it was confirmed by the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers at a meeting in Seoul, South Korea, yesterday.
The change means a person in India will be able to type www.irishtimes.com entirely in Sanskrit and be routed directly to this newspaper’s website. At present only the domain name can be in non-Latin script while the .com or .ie suffix has to be in Latin script.
More than half the world’s internet users do not use a Latin-based language and the move is expected to see about 100,000 new characters available for use in website addresses.
Chairman of the regulator Peter Dengate Thrush said: “This is only the first step, but it is an incredibly big one and an historic move toward the internationalisation of the Internet.”
Nations will also be able to apply for internet address endings reflecting their name from November 16th.
