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edesignuk

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Original poster
Mar 25, 2002
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London, England
The internet is on the cusp of the "biggest change" to its working "since it was invented 40 years ago", the net regulator Icann has said.

The body said it that it was finalising plans to introduce web addresses using non-Latin characters.

The proposal - initially approved in 2008 - would allow domain names written in Asian, Arabic or other scripts.

The body said if the final plans were approved on 30 October, it would accept the first applications by 16 November.

The first Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) could be up and running by "mid 2010" said the president of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann).

"Of the 1.6 billion internet users today worldwide, more than half use languages that have scripts that are not Latin-based," said Rod Beckstrom at the opening of Icann's conference in Seoul, South Korea.

"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."
BBC.
 
Not a good idea, IMHO. Hope Google is prepared to translate. Otherwise the internet will basically be cut in half.

It's almost like having half the internet using a different numeric system...
 
^ there are already websites in different languages, they're just forced to use Latin character sets for their domain names. This will just allow them to use their chosen language in their domain name choice too.

...at least that's how I'm seeing it?
 
Not a good idea, IMHO. Hope Google is prepared to translate. Otherwise the internet will basically be cut in half.

It's almost like having half the internet using a different numeric system...


I don't understand how, say for example, a site in Korean will somehow become less accessible to me just because the domain name is also in Korean…
 
Right, but won't it effect a Latin character's user to find a non Latin website's domain name when searching, and vice versa?

And I don't know much about SEO, but don't domain names factor in?

I think it's great that non Latin users will be able to use their preferred language and native wording, but not if it fractures the internets by language.
 
^ I should think that might be a possibility, but I'd also expect most sites will maintain a Latin character set domain for this very reason.
 
"You have to appreciate what a fantastically complicated technical feature this is," he said.

"What we have created is a different translation system."

This is where I think the problems would come in. We've all seen Engrish.com and the mess that could be made.


^ I should think that might be a possibility, but I'd also expect most sites will maintain a Latin character set domain for this very reason.

That makes a lot of sense.

But if you don't understand the language… finding that website is of little help surely. Even with Google Language tools etc.

In most cases, that's true, but travelers, business researchers, genealogists and the like may have more trouble. I'm none of these, BTW. Just speculating.
 
It will make net isolation easier for some countries inclined to cut off access to contentious material. The likes of North Korea could easily fix it so that only domain names in their particular alphabet are reachable.
 
I'm also not sure if this is a good thing. It does seem like this will divide the internet. I know everything is based off of IP addresses with domain names linked to the IP Addresses...so, you could theoretically link to those numbers directly instead of the domain names. However, I can still foresee countries, people and businesses creating websites only in their local language script. Barring direct IP links, this presents problems for foreigners to easily gain access or view such sites.

Even if you don't know the local language, it's useful being able to easily view the sites anyway. Audio-visual content, layout,etc. might be important to reference. Also, even though website language translation is not perfect, you can still get the gist of what is on the page. With one standard naming convention, all people, everywhere, can access websites (IP/Domain blocking, non-withstanding). Once you start localizing domain structure, you loose this easy access and effectively cut off people.
 
...The internet is on the cusp of the "biggest change" to its working "since it was invented 40 years ago", the net regulator Icann has said. The body said it that it was finalising plans to introduce web addresses using non-Latin characters...

The devaluing of Latin-based communication seems a slap especially at those that initially developed it! The money quote in question, "Of the 1.6 billion internet users today worldwide, more than half use languages that have scripts that are not Latin-based..." references simple "users" as opposed to tech "developers," and I think that if non-Latin character development wants to proceed it should be an adjunct tool to "users" who wish to communicate in Latin, not in place of it.
 
The devaluing of Latin-based communication seems a slap especially at those that initially developed it! The money quote in question, "Of the 1.6 billion internet users today worldwide, more than half use languages that have scripts that are not Latin-based..." references simple "users" as opposed to tech "developers," and I think that if non-Latin character development wants to proceed it should be an adjunct tool to "users" who wish to communicate in Latin, not in place of it.

I stopped communicating in Latin after high school :D

This seems like a way for ICANN to now sell all the same domains again, only this time in differing character sets. What happens when there is a name collision, albeit in differing character sets when one or both of the websites decide to expand into the other character set? If the Kanji equivalent of McDonalds.com (a common name in Japan for sure!) decides it wants to have a Latin-based domain point to their site, or worse Billions and Billions served wants to have a Kanji-based domain point back to the home of the Big Mac, who gets the domain rights?

I just thought of something else... will there be new top level domains in these new non-latin character sets? If so, think of the fun in mixing and matching to get around web-squatters... [kanji domain].com or my_domain.[kanji equiv. of dot com]. Maybe [kanji domain].[arabic equiv. of dot com]. Big corporations will have to buy hundreds of new domain combinations to protect their trademarks.
 
Even if you don't know the local language, it's useful being able to easily view the sites anyway. Audio-visual content, layout,etc. might be important to reference. Also, even though website language translation is not perfect, you can still get the gist of what is on the page. With one standard naming convention, all people, everywhere, can access websites (IP/Domain blocking, non-withstanding). Once you start localizing domain structure, you loose this easy access and effectively cut off people.

True, but the alternative is worse. Without this change, everyone in those countries is having to use addresses in scripts they're not familiar with.

At least with these changes, it'll be easier for the majority of people using those sites.
 
Wirelessly posted (Nokia 5800 Tube XpressMusic : Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.4; U; Series60/5.0 Nokia5800d-1/21.0.101; Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413)

I understand that some of you don't like this idea, but I also think it's a bit self-serving to say that over half the users in this world who write using other scripts should just sound out their company name using a foreign alphabet, and ask citizens/consumers to do the same, some with great difficulty, because you happen to be comfortable with how things are.

Welcome to the Westernised world, I guess. :eek:
 
^ Spare me. This is taking a standard that's been in place since the beginning and throwing it out the window. It might not only screw up global searching, it could make every internet user extremely vulnerable to spoofing attacks.


Internationalized domain name

Because IDN allows websites to use full Unicode names, it also makes it much easier to create a spoofed web site that looks exactly like another, including domain name and security certificate, but in fact is controlled by someone attempting to steal private information. These spoofing attacks potentially open users up to phishing attacks.

These attacks are not due to technical deficiencies in either the Unicode or IDNA specifications, but because different characters in different languages can look the same, depending on the font used. For example, Unicode character U+0430, Cyrillic small letter a ("а"), can look identical to Unicode character U+0061, Latin small letter a, ("a") used in English. Characters that look alike in this way may be termed homonyms, homographs, or (less ambiguously) homoglyphs.

ICANN's out for another land grab. It's all about the Benjamin's or rupees or نقود. :rolleyes:
 
Wirelessly posted (Nokia 5800 Tube XpressMusic : Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.4; U; Series60/5.0 Nokia5800d-1/21.0.101; Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413)

Well things can change. Just that the advantaged obviously don't want it.

Besides, what you said is like saying everything was designed perfectly at the beginning. Well, we've come to a point where it isn't, so if some of the fear-mongering actually comes true, well then I'm willing to take a step back to make many strides towards a fairer internet for over over half the internet users in the world.
 
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