The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) will use a meeting in Seoul this week to discuss how best to implement non-English language web domains.
The organisation explained that the meeting will “set a milestone” in the development of Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs), as Icann considers a fast-track process for a limited number of governments or administrations.
The fast-track process is being considered in order to meet the “immediate needs” of these governments, as well as providing a proof-of-concept model for the long-term roll-out of IDNs.
Icann chief executive Rod Beckstrom said that IDNs, which could be addresses made up of Korean or Cyrillic characters, for example, will change the internet and its user experience dramatically.
“This is one of the most exciting developments for users of the internet globally in years. IDNs will enable people the world over to use domain name addresses in their own language,” he said.
Icann added in a statement announcing the beginning of the fast-track adoption process that the international top level domains will offer “many new opportunities and benefits for internet users around the world by allowing them to establish and use domains fully represented in their native languages and scripts”.
However, Icann said that application developers also had to embrace the new domains, and make it possible for users to register and use clients and services in their own language.
“Not all application software is capable of working with IDNs. It is up to each application developer to decide whether or not they wish to support IDNs,” said Icann.
“This can be browsers and email clients, for example, but also sites where you sign up for a service or purchase a product and need to enter an email address.”
Sam Pickles, lead enterprise field systems engineer at F5 Networks argued that the introduction of IDNs could spur massive growth in internet usage, which may bring with it new problems.
“We’ve been warned in the past that the internet is in danger of melting down, and while I don’t think that’s going to happen on a grand scale, reliance on what is in some cases pretty ancient infrastructure with single-points-of-failure will almost certainly mean frequent inabilities to access photos, data, e-mail and so on that are increasingly stored on a server somewhere in the world rather than on our home PC,” he added.
“Domain Name” to be introduced in Indian languages
‘Domain Name,’ the unique identity to access the web, currently only with Latin characters, will be introduced in Indian languages in India by June 2010, a top official involved in the task said.
Domain Names are entered in the address bar of the browser to access a website. This domain name provides a unique identity and on clicking on a given domain name, the webpage of the particular website opens up.
International Domain Names (IDN) allow one to have Domain Names in local languages. So far, Domain Names were available only in Latin characters and therefore having one Domain Name in an Indian language was impossible.
‘ICANN and the initiative of the Government of India have ensured that you can have your Domain Name in an Indian language and soon be able to type and access the C-DAC site,’ the official said.
C-DAC, GIST, P7une, in close association with DIT and with contributions from C-DAC Kolkata and Thiruvananthapuram have evolved a policy document for International Domain Names in Indian languages.
Over three years, out of 22 scheduled Indian languages, work on 14 major languages has been completed. The remaining eight languages would be taken up soon.
With the maturity of the policy it was time to involve the stakeholders. It includes the Domain Name registrars, web portal developers and designers, language and educational experts, e-government representatives, system administrators, webmasters and e-security experts.
‘A large number of issues need to be deliberated upon and discussed. Given the complexity of Indian writing systems, safeguards have to be introduced to ensure that the common man is secure as far as possible from phishing and spoofing attacks. The syllabic structure of Indian languages, Variant Tables and restriction rules are some of the major focal areas of IDN, which have been created. These along with the IDN implementation policy have been published on the DIT and C-DAC websites.’ ‘We seek views and comments from all stakeholders, before the roll out of Domain Names in Indian languages by June 2010,’ the C-DAC spokesman said at the National Awareness Workshop here.
A series of National Workshops on IDN were launched with the first workshop in Pune. Similar workshops would be organised at major centres like Kolkata and Punjab in December 2009 and January 2010 respectively to provide a platform to all major players.
‘Increased awareness of the problems and perspectives of IDN will provide useful feedback for finalizing the policy.’ The culmination of these discussions would be held in an International Conference to be held in Delhi in February 2010.
The awareness workshop for availability of domain names in Indian languages, was an effort of the DIT, Govt of India, C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advances Computing) and NIXI (National Internet Exchange of India - the designated registry in Domain Names.
Source
indlawnews
