The day the Internet changed

Changing the future of the web?

The board of The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved plans for domains name to now be allowed in Chinese, Arabic and other non-Latin-script. The decision is set to transform the internet.

The ICANN annual meeting was held in Seoul, where it was decided that seeing as half of the 1.6 billion people that use the internet speak languages with non-Latin script, it made sense to allow non-Latin-script web addresses.

The proposal was first approved in June 2008, but it has taken two years for testing of the system to discover it is feasible. The move, which as been described as the biggest change to the way the internet works since it was created 40 years ago, might see the first Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) made available next year.

Big change

The stage of the plan will see the internet's Domain Name System (DNS) changed, so that it can recognise and translate non-Latin characters.

This will enable non-Latin domains to be read as computer-readable numbers, known as internet Protocol (IP) addresses.

Speaking to the BBC, ICANN said the "fantastically complicated technical feature" allowing IDNs would represent the "biggest change" to the coding that underlies the internet since it was invented four decades ago.

As internet usage spreads around the world, more and more users are non native-English speakers. As such, ICANN has said it would begin to accept the first applications for IDNs by 16 November, with the first up and running by "mid-2010".

It is likely the majority of early non-Latin net addresses to be approved will be in Chinese and Arabic script, followed by Russian. ICANN's move can also be seen as moving with the inevitable as in several countries, such as China and Thailand, workarounds that allow computer users to enter web addresses in their own language have already been introduced.

However, these do not work on all computers.

Universal internet address code

ICANN have stated that the decision will not create an universal internet address code that will work in any language and every place so all the world's computers can connect with each other.

"Of the 1.6 billion internet users today worldwide, more than half use languages that have scripts that are not Latin-based," said Icann president and CEO Rod Beckstrom earlier this week.

"So this change is very much necessary for not only half the world's internet users today but more than half, probably, of the future users as the internet continues to spread."

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