Internet resources: First non-Latin domains launched on Internet

First websites with non-Latin top-level domain names have been launched on the Internet.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates have acquired domains in Arabic language. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) stressed that that was the first major change in the system of domain names since the appearance of the Web.

“Introduction of Arabic top-level domain is an important milestone in Internet industry. This measure with boost the number of online users in the country and will enable Internet services to penetrate new market segments by eliminating language barriers”, - Minister of Communications and Information Technology of Egypt Terek Kamel.

Along with Arabic there will remain Latin domains of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

ICANN inform that currently 21 requests for opening of the top-level domains in 11 languages are being processed. In the second half of 2010 first Cyrillic domains are expected to be mounted.