First Non-Latin, International Domain Names Finally Launch

Tue, 11 May 2010 17:30:00 +0000

The first significant change to Internet domain names in many years was made today when ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) approved and deployed three domain names using a non-Latin script: Arabic.

You can already visit http://موقع.وزارة-الأتصالات.مصر/ and two other Arabic script domain names, though they might not display correctly if your browser doesn’t have IDN (International Domain Name) support.

Using Mozilla Firefox 3.6.3 and Google Chrome Developer Build 5.0.375.29 for Mac, I was able to visit that web address but it displayed incorrectly in the address bar. When I visited the site in Apple Safari 4.0.5, it was written out correctly.

Arabic on Omid Farhang

First Non-Latin, International Domain Names Finally Launch