Domain Names with a Local Flavor...

[Darren]

Domain Names with a Local Flavor...

Domain names are about to go native...

Starting in March, Internet domain names will be able to include words with diacritical marks such as umlauts and accents. Proponents of the new naming standard say it will help preserve local culture and identity.

Until now, the Internet has not been very friendly to languages that use diacritics on some letters. Umlauts and acute accents, cedillas and circumflexes fall outside the 37 characters of the ASCII character set which all domain names have been restricted to.

That means Germans who want domain names containing umlauts have to be satisfied with adding an unwieldy 'e' after the vowel in question. For example, the Müllers or Schröders who want their own Web sites must register them as mueller.de or schroeder.de.

Other languages, such as French, which doesn't have a transcription system for its own diacritical marks, just have to leave them off.

But that will soon change. Starting March 1, 2004, users wishing to register names in their own languages -- diacritics and all -- will be able to do so thanks to a new Internet standard that will go into effect. The new IDN (Internationalized Domain Name) standard will allow 92 letters with many kinds of accents, dots, hooks and squiggles to be part of a URL.

"For a long time users from non-English-speaking countries have requested that letters from their own languages be allowed," Klaus Herzig, spokesman for the German domain name administrator DENIC, told DW-WORLD. "That's important as the Internet becomes more global. People will be able to use the names they use in their real lives."

SOURCE / MORE...



:lala: What are peoples views on this?

 

[RJ]

I don't expect it to change much. Someone trying to build a brand on a word with a diacritical mark is still going to have to try to register it without it.

Like the owner of Müllers.De is still going to need to get Mullers.De or risk losing traffic of all the visitors without a 'ü' on their keyboard.

 

[Kodeking]

It wont be widely used. Too much internet traffic comes from english speaking countries. It would only hurt them

 

[Darren]

I agree -RJ-, however, I feel this will be a big change to the domain biz... I mean, there will be 92 characters retaking the current 37 characters... Thats over double of the current characters... I'd expect this to build alot of confusion, difficulity, and possible legal matters between websites.

I think it would be much easier if these extra characters where availabile in a non-sensitive style;

Example: Müllers.de is equal to Mullers.de. No matter what kind of diacritical character was used, whether it's 'ü' or 'u', it would still be the same domain...

 

[Darren]

In it's own way, the above will be a big 'upgrade' in domain name registary...

Doesn't anybody else have anything to add to this topic?

 

[Whisper]

I don't really know how it would change worldwide, anyway I'm pretty sure here in Italy, where letters like è/é/à/ò are widely used, it wouldn't change too much, because Internet users know they can't simply type those characters in a domain name.

Anyway, it may sound interesting if spaces are allowed; I thought that since I saw many users type domains with a space between words...


My .2