ICANN to test IDNs next week

Associated Press is reporting ICANN has announced a trial of internationalised domain names (IDNs), with sample addresses to be added to central directories as early as next week.There are eleven domain names being trialled, aimed primarily at “software developers and web site designers to test the new system, but they are the first such names entered in the 13 key domain name directories, known as root servers, after years of discussions and limited-access tests.”The AP report says if all goes well with the tests, they could be in use by general internet users by the end of 2008.”The 11 suffixes now under review will read “test” in Arabic, Persian, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean, Yiddish, Japanese and Tamil.””They were chosen based on the online communities that have expressed the most interest in and need for non-English domains, said Tina Dam, director of the Internationalized Domain Names program for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, known as ICANN, which oversees Internet addressing policies.”On 15 October, ICANN will outline the “unveil mechanisms for individuals and businesses to try out the new suffixes.” IDNs will not be able to be registered, but websites will be able to be created and non-English links will be able to be shared.ICANN will be establishing a 24 hour hotline in case of problems that might disrupt the DNS.The Associated Press story is widely published on many news websites, but a few of them are:

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