On October 30, 2009, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ("ICANN"), the non-profit corporation which administers and sets policies related to the Internet, domain names, etc., announced the roll-out of internationalized domain names (i.e. domain addresses utilizing non-Latin characters or non-ASCII scripts).
The first phase of the process will commence on November 16, 2009 to allow countries to apply to ICANN for country codes (such as ".ca") in a different character set (i.e. Cyrillic) and further roll-outs will follow in subsequent phases. To monitor developments in this area please consult the web page developed by ICANN to post updates.
While certainly indicative of the global reach and utilization of the Internet, the incorporation of some 100,000 new character sets to the formerly A-Z format may result in challenges for current owners of domain name registrations (i.e. resulting in confusion between Latin and non-Latin domains) and may result in challenges to software programmers or users of software which are presently hard-coded to recognize only Latin domain addresses. In either case, the phased roll-out is intended to mitigate substantial concerns in this regard, however, users of accented Latin characters may already be aware that certain software still does not support such usage.
Notwithstanding the potential challenges of internationalized domains, this development presents great opportunities for brand owners to bolster their online presence and to increase brand recognition among all Internet users utilizing non-Latin characters. At the same time, however, brand owners are cautioned to carefully monitor Internet activity in order to anticipate and/or resolve potential online confusion - particularly where a non-Latin character may effectively mimic Latin characters specifically to cause the re-direct of web traffic (i.e. to utilize the number "0" as opposed to a capital letter "O") to a competing or entirely unrelated website.
