In what is widely viewed as an historic move, Net regulator ICAAN has recently switched on a new system which allows non-Latin characters to be included in top level domains.

With increasing Internet use across the globe, there has been a growing need to account for domain names which consist of characters from all scripts and not just those which are Latin based, as has been the case in the past. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and UAE were the first three countries to have their country codes in Arabic script, with the Egyptian Ministry of Communications (rather fittingly), being one of the first sites to have a full Arabic web address.

It is anticipated that this is just a first step and that in the future, there will be the ability to allow web addresses in, for example, Chinese and Thai, albeit that ICAAN has warned that it will take some time for the new system to become fully operational.

Luisa D’Alessandro, head of the Commercial team comments: “This is a really exciting development which extends the benefits and opportunities of the online environment to more and more users by providing easier access to people all over the globe. Users have previously had to use Latin script, which will inevitably have made Internet use more awkward for millions of people whose own languages are non-Latin based.”

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