Since midnight GMT, .com, .net and .org extensions have been
added to domain names written in Chinese, Japanese and Korean
script. In only a few hours, one Canadian registrar has reported
16,000 registrations. Previously, domain names attached to the
three global top level domains could only be in Roman letters or
numbers.
The liberalisation of domain naming, which is expected to boost
Asian internet use, was made possible by VeriSign Global Registry
Services which controls the database used by domain name registrars
for .com, .net and .org name registrations. Arabic and other
languages could follow. VeriSign authorised over 20 companies to
take orders for the Asian domain names and submit them to its
database.
The most popular names registered so far have been generic
words. The move increases the number of available characters in a
domain name from 37 to 40,282. Users of Western keyboards will need
to add foreign character sets if they want to enter the addresses
in their internet browsers.
Critics have said that the move by VeriSign, which is still
officially a test, is premature and incompatible with present
internet standards. They argue that web servers are not prepared
for the new characters so will not be able to direct users to the
new domain names.
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