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Internet set for change with non-English addresses

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Bad news then

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I can't imagine having to type a url (except a link) on a keyboard, pecking away trying to find the right keystrokes for things like 白滝 or وعسفشبش or ФИСВУАПРШОЛД. haha

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This is interesting - will we be able to go into websites in non-latin alphabets with the latin alphabet or not?

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above should be read, "(except for clicking a link)"

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"Bad news then"

How so? Making the world LESS homogenized (the same) sounds great to me.

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Bad news because the 'world wide web' becomes the 'country wide web' for many sites. Korean sites only accessible (through direct input) by people who can type in korean; same goes for Japanese sites, etc.

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Bad news because the 'world wide web' becomes the 'country wide web' for many sites. Korean sites only accessible (through direct input) by people who can type in korean; same goes for Japanese sites, etc.

Yeah, that is bad news. But I guess most people come in on search engines anyway, so this may not be a big deal.

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Bad news because the 'world wide web' becomes the 'country wide web' for many sites. Korean sites only accessible (through direct input) by people who can type in korean; same goes for Japanese sites, etc.

Yeah, that is bad news. But I guess most people come in on search engines anyway, so this may not be a big deal.

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very bad news... it will make it that much easier for kiddie porn and other unsavory, not to mention illegal, websites to prosper and put a damper on the exchange of ideas. English is the tie that binds, like it or not.

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It will be difficult to find websites for people that don't speak that language. I also wonder how you would google them up if you have not that lettered keyboard. t bone, your Russian/Bulgarian makes a lot of sense, haha!

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Indeed, if eradicating English from internet website design in certain countries was the target, it is off-target.

Of the 1.6 billion Internet users worldwide, Beckstrom—a former chief of U.S. cybersecurity—said that more than half use languages that have scripts based on alphabets other than Latin.

Tags and code are in alphabet and/or alphanumeric characters. Also, meta-words used by search engines to actually find a website are written in alphanumeric characters on sections of the website invisible to final users. Like Latin and taxonomic classification, it is by now altogether impossible to eradicate usage of English language from website design; hence the address in characters other than alphanumeric characters appears merely cosmetic. Scripts in other languages? Maybe the comments sections outside coding itself. Like DOS or Unix; the main gut of the creature is alphanumeric.

Enabling the change, Thrush said, is the creation of a translation system that allows multiple scripts to be converted to the right address.

Apparently according to the quote above it could be that people could type an address in any language and it would be recognized and searched in the language in which its website is registered (in its domain). It sounds like an online translator for url search boxes. Online translators are not quite reliable yet; I wonder how exactly would this work.

As other posters mentioned, installing language "borders" in cyberspace will only be in detriment of those limited by that language in terms of market and global visibility. It will also provide a haven for criminals in specially endemic-language regions (such as Korea and Japan for example). Like it or not, the world is already a world wide web. Turning back would be as unfeasible as trying to make people un-learn how to read. To call for the world's attention on human rights and local issues, people need to use languages others understand and sadly, the majority will dictate this (supply and demand). English, Spanish and Chinese are more likely to lead by sheer number of speakers. So yes, it's a bad idea that may put smaller groups at disadvantage.

On the other hand, the importance of speaking more than one language cannot be disregarded. I still wonder, will Japanese still work for me years after I finish my studies and go back to my country? How will I use it, except from reading a fraction of the technical materials I must manage in my career?

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Let's see... I now use about .000000034% of sites accessible in the Roman alphabet. I doubt I'll be heading or worrying about accessing sites in Korean, Russian, Urdu, etc. If those language users want to input URLS in their native scripts, have at it. Next!

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It will be like the ones in Japan...you can search for those sites on a Japanese search engine in Japanese, but they rarely pop up on major English web search engines...

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Nothing to be shocked so much. Why to be so scared to find a site it its domain name is non-english? It will be the same as what is at present. If anybody doesn't know a language what will he do with the website other than relying on online translator? It doesn't matter to an information hunger whether the site is Chinese or Japanese. The whole thing of availability of a non-english site depends on search engine optimization of that site. If the web developer isn't instructed to work it for english site then it will not appear on english search engine the same thing happening now for Japanese sites also. Ultimately this new concept will boom a new bubble of domain business, nothing else.

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get ready to do some heavy cyber squatting, imagine all the katakana domains taken up fast. then you have chinese/japanese websites battleing for kanji.

However the MAJOR challenge is the script and programming, if I enter kanji it just appears as a string of letters, and numbers.

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No company that's already on the web will abandon their latin-alphabet URL. But they will have to register their native alphabet URL. This will be a bonanza for registrars.

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why is everyone so scared? Chances are that those sites that have a url in non latin have a web site with no English and only local language.

Also it probably makes it easier for local regulators to spot dodgy url's but let's face it I am sure that most dodgy sites are not trapped by their name...

Problem is are the worlds search engines ready?

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http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4826898,00.html

I'm sorry, but people are mistaken if they believe that the current URLs are in English. Rather, they are written in the Latin alphabet. Take for example, the URL www.xamyo.com . What exactly is "English" there? Is it really going to matter if becomes written in Chinese characters instead? I say it makes complete sense to write it in the native alphabet.

Making URLs available in other alphabets doesn't help kiddie porn, either. Total red herring there.

I applaud this change. English-speaking people who cannot read in other alphabets need to stop complaining and make an effort to learn to read other alphabets.

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Do you really believe the child porn police are looking at the URLs to go after illegal websites? Right, they just Google "kiddie porn" and look for any URLs that are similar to "www.kiddieporn.com" and then go arrest the webmasters. Give me a break! Meanwhile those clever Japanese are gonna figure it out! They'll simply make a website www.子供ポルノ.com and escape all notice from the rest of the world because they are using their SECRET CODE (AKA "endemic language")!

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Wow! I wonder what will Al Gore "invent" next?

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ippanjin33: Take for example, the URL www.xamyo.com

At least you can type in those letters using your keyboard and thus access the page. If the page name is in a script you don't have the font for on the computer you use at the library or at school, you can't access it at all. Even if you can't read it, it means you can't even run it through Google translator. The internet then starts to get a bunch of small, closed rooms rather than one big, open room.

The only way this will work well is if the multi-script address map back to one single name. For example, if www.今日.co.jp could also be accessible through www.kiyou.co.jp or the Arabic or Korean equivalents etc.

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For the people that run windows -this may prove difficult. Cell-phone internet(s) use.

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I think donkusai hit on the real problem and its solution. Some ask why you would complain about not being able to access a site in a language you can't read, but that's not the issue. The problem is that scripts not in roman characters represents a technical roadblock. I can read Japanese, but if I'm in the US and I don't have my own computer (say at a relative's/friend's house, or on a public computer), I simply couldn't enter an address in Japanese script. Clever use of a search engine may or may not work (depending on if the site has roman characters somewhere on it that are unique and you know of).

The solution, as donkusai mentioned, is if the addresses are still made of roman characters at the core. Or, if all websites are still required to have as roman character address in addition to one in another script. This way the move would truly mean more accessability. Unfortunately it's not clear in the article whether or not this is the plan.

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English-speaking people who cannot read in other alphabets need to stop complaining and make an effort to learn to read other alphabets.

...Right.

I agree with donkusai.

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Welcome to the world that non-Latin alphabet writing people live in every day. They cannot write and search in their own language unless they download an IME (Input Method Editor) or somesuch.

The whole thing of being scared that it is not in their familiar alphabet just shows an unopenness and bias.

How many people here are fine with the URLs being only in Latin? Now, how many people here are fine with the URLs being only in Kanji? Somehow, I imagine most of the people who would be opposed to them being in Kanji are the ones who can't read it. Am I wrong? What ALPHABET used in URLs is not what makes the internet safer. Do you see my point yet? Can you not see how it being only in one language shows a favoritism toward those who can read that alphabet and a bias toward those who cannot? It's nice to hide behind the reasoning that it makes life more difficult. But, that is the real world. The whole world is not made up of English-reading people. I have nothing against making the internet more accessible to everyone. Stop your whining and download some language support packages already.

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ippanjin33- I can't download language support packages onto whatever public computer I come across. Having addresses in non-roman scripts only would increase access for some while shutting out others- not accessible to everyone. How many computers in the world need special software/installation to input kanji? How many need it to input the roman alphabet? Roman alphabet addresses need to remain an option for every website, even if other scripts are adopted in addition.

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My guess is that any website that decides to use a non-Latin alphabet URL is not targeting a readership of people who can't read the alphabet they chose for their URL. Existing websites probably aren't going to "switch over." More likely, a lot of websites (like in Japan, for instance), will create URLs in their native language in addition to their current "English" ones.

No one is saying you will HAVE to learn to input non-Latin alphabets, here. It'll be your free will to decide if you want to make the effort to visit a website that doesn't cater to your home alphabet. But, it is called the "World Wide Web" after all, so shouldn't we try to include more than just "our comfortable" part of the world into it? I'm sure many people will be happy to be able to find their websites much easier in the future.

Consider 天堂株. For Japanese, it is normal to write it in Japanese. To change it into the Latin alphabet, there is more than one way to write it. One says to write it as Nintendou, another says to write it as Nintendo. Confusing, right?

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Sorry, of course I meant 任天堂.

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My Macs type in any language we see fit to use. English, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and quite a bit of others. This is going to open up for a huge expansion on the net. Should jam up things quite well to.

For those of you needing a Japanese translator, try japanese.org It is a brilliant piece of software and has not missed a thing for me when needing specialty vocab.

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Sorry, of course I meant 任天堂.

The defense rests, m'lud.

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If English was good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for the interwebs.

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Well, okay, take the 任天堂 example. How is a Japanese visiting the US (or a Japanese-reading American) to access the site from a public terminal if they can't also access it with nintendo.co.jp?

I'm just saying all websites with non-latin addresses should ALSO have a latin address, for compatibility around the globe.

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It is difficult to search a right website on net due to poor SEO strategy by Japanese companies. This new idea will create more difficulties.

Google Bot, MSN Bot, Yahoo Slurp good luck!

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It will increase revenue of greedy internet domain registration companies. Does really Japanese internet world want isolation from other countries same as edo isolation period?

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What Japanese domain names would be good ones to snag?

ヤホー.com 2ちゃんねる.com おいしい鯨.com ?

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What Japanese domain names would be good ones to snag? ヤホー.com

Maybe if you like yodelling.

Otherwise, ヤフー

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You have been able to write domain names in Japanese for a about 3-4 years, they must be talking about some sort of change to the system not the fact you can use it.

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Will they allow Klingon too!!??

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I don't see any problem at all. If a domain is written in a language different from English it's meant to users who know and use this language. The only nuisance probably is email.

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http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/idn-cctld-implementation-plan-30sep09-en.pdf

The fact that entire Internet addresses will be in non-Latin alphabet is interesting. The websites could then be something like 任天堂.株式会社.日本

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As Azrael said this is just going to a tool to convert other languages back to alphanumeric characters.

So whether you type in asahi.jp or 朝日.日本 won't matter as it will take you to the same place.

Of course this wouldn't be needed in Japan if more people learnt how to use the url bar with romaji. So many times I've seen people use google to type in 価格.com rather than just type kakaku.com (or even just kakaku) in the url bar.

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I am for Klingon

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What Japanese domain names would be good ones to snag? ヤホー.com 2ちゃんねる.com おいしい鯨.com ?

Registering other peoples trademarks is bad form and will just get the domain taken away from you. Stick to generic terms like:

アート.com フランチャイズ.com 金価格.com or グラフィックデザイナー.com

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wow as if there isn't enough dead sites already. Good luck finding your site. It's handy that there are so few letters in the Roman alphabet. Note that includes the most common Western languages. Whereas adding thousands of kanji to the issue and claim to be an improvement is pretty funny as this thread shows

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the written language of Japanese does not lend itself well to Internet domains with so many possibilities leading to confusion. Other languages that are non-Western though that have a more central style however should work out well.

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i think this is a huge mistake. It will lead to a bum-rush of copyright infringement and domain squatting. If you are illiterate enough to not know a romanized version of the websites name, perhaps you shouldn't BE on the internet...

yes, in Japan the tradition of putting the (***)検索 is extremely annoying. They do it to raise the web ranking of their sites, but to also spare Japanese people from having to type any western characters at all...

This is not an issue of English dominating othr languages, it is about finding ONE standard that everyone apply globally. If now i have to register my own company domain in 30 other languages, my company will go broke!!!!

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av女優.jp is a good example, and gaijeans welcome too

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Domain names in foreign languages will be hip for awhile, but eventually if the website owners want many more people to view their site they will most likely just change back to english.

I personally would rather have a more international internet than a "globalized" internet.

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you see what happens... there can only be ONE website, so all these fancy non-romanized domains after all can only point to ONE site!! Even in the case of multi-language websites, they are all integrated into one site. This is rather ridiculous...

Whoever tries out the domain in a while, and then gives it up, faces the danger of a squatter sitting on it or using it to peddle his fake wares.

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This should lead to an exponential increase in the number of phishing attacks.

And there may be something off about Wíkipedia.

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