New domain names will be online soon

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers board, the U.S. government appointed guardian of the Internet, announced at a meeting in Seoul on Oct 30 that new international domain names will be launched after November 16.

Domain names, or web addresses or internet addresses like foodconsumer.org and google.com, are used to locate web sites, which may be accessed also by following their IP address. IP stands for Internet Protocol. But domain names are easier to remember than IP addresses.

The new domain names will contain non-Latin characters from start to finish which representing some technical change to the Interne since it was created four decades ago, said ICANN chairman Peter Dengate Thrush.

"Right now Internet address endings are limited to Latin characters - A to Z. But the Fast Track Process is the first step in bringing the 100,000 characters of the languages of the world online for domain names," Thrush said.

The application for new international domain names, approved based on ICANN's Fast Track Process will start on November 16.

The approval means that nations and territories can apply for Internet extensions reflecting their name and made up of characters from their national language, according to a Oct 30 press release by the ICANN.

No non-Latin domain names have not been ready for users to claim and use just yet. Governments can only start selling the domain names after they apply to the ICANN and get approved.

Those who want to set up a website need to apply for a domain name from a domain registrar or domain name reseller. The most common domain names are dot com, dot net, dot org domain names followed by country domain names like dot US fr the United States, and dot CN (for china).

Premium domain names with extensions like .com, net and org have been sold out and the new internationalized domain names are expected to bring the industry some new business.

Still dot com domain names are the king. The new non-Latin domain names may find limited application within certain region or countries.

By David Liu