We can finally start to register complete domain names in non-latin characters as representatives of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approves the first three internationalised domain name (IDN) country-code top level domain (ccTLD) to be placed in the DNS root zone.
The three IDN ccTLDs are:
- Egypt: مصر (Egypt)
- Saudi Arabia: السعودية (AlSaudiah)
- United Arab Emirates: امارات (Emarat)
“All three are Arabic script domains, and will enable domain names written fully right-to-left,” Kim Davies, Root Zone Services Manager of ICANN said.
“If your software does not have full IDN support, this might not work exactly as expected,” Davies continued. “You may see a mangled string of letters and numbers, and perhaps some percent signs or a couple of “xn--”s mixed into the address bar. Or it may not work at all.”
One of the first operational website as a result of the introduction of IDN ccTLD(s) is the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology whose domain name is وزارة-الأتصالات.مصر
As of this post, ICANN has received a total of 21 requests for IDN ccTLD(s) representing 11 languages including Chinese, Russian, Tamil and Thai.
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