A report on development of internationalized domains was presented at the Internet Governance Forum that has recently ended in Istanbul. It was prepared by EURid experts – operator of the united European domain zone .EU together with UNESCO and representatives of regional organizations that support national domains: CENTR, LACTLD, APTLD and AFTLD.
“Only by pursuing a policy of multilingualism in Internet access can we give effect to our policy of an Internet that is truly global, and truly accessible to all”, states Neelie Kroesin, European Commission Vice-Presindent, the foreword of the report. The document notes some progress achieved in this regard. Thus, by the end of 2013 around 6 million internationalized domains were registered in the Internet. These are not only domain names registered in IDN domains like .РФ, but also domain names in traditional national domain zones that contain symbols of national alphabets.
At the same time this big digit should not be misleading, since it represents only 2 percent of all registered domains in the same time period. The report also states that the very name “internationalized” can for now be perceived only ironically, since non-Latin domain names are used only locally – in the countries that speak corresponding languages and for resources which content is addresses to citizens of these countries. Moreover, 90 percent of all the names registered in top-level domains are in English or clearly understood by English speakers.
“Domain names with national alphabets are to be used inside of the country or linguistic community. They help to make Internet accessible to wider audiences and avoid a sort of “discrimination” on linguistic grounds, when no knowledge of English limits possibilities of the net for elderly and young children. Moreover, there are niches where IDN domains are indispensable, for example, outdoor advertising and radio ads. So, IDN domains have great prospects”, Andrei Kolesnikov, CEO at Coordination Center, said about conclusions of the report.
