Technology - internet

Web to accept non-latin characters

Article published on the 2009-10-30 Latest update 2009-10-30 11:31 TU

The Latin alphabet.
(Photo: wikipedia)

The internet is about to see a radical change after a global regulatory body agreed to end the exclusive use of Latin characters for website addresses.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers say their decision made at a six-day conference in Seoul will open up the internet to millions more people worldwide. Currently more than half of the internet’s users write in languages that do not use Latin script.

Within a year it could be possible to write domain names in any of the world’s languages, such as Chinese, Korean and Arabic.

The decision has been hailed by ICANN as the biggest change to the internet in 40 years. It was approved the day after the anniversary of the internet’s birth at the University of California in Los Angeles.

Rod Beckstrom, president and CEO of ICANN, said that the introduction of Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) signifies the internet belongs to everyone.

“The internet is about bringing the world together and this will facilitate that effort,” he said.