Internationalised Domain Names that enable internet users whose language is a non-Latin-based script, which in effect are all non-English languages, are becoming more common. ICANN, who has been gradually approving more IDNs through ICANN's IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process has now approved IDNs in Arabic, Cyrillic and Chinese.
Their introduction has been warmly welcomed by ICANN's CEO and President
Rod Beckstrom who spoke enthusiastically about this at the ICANN
meeting in Brussels last week, while also noting that the support for
IDNs at events he has attended in Egypt and Russia had been fantastic.
To date ICANN has received 31 Fast Track requests for IDNs representing
19 languages. One of the first to be approved was the Cyrillic domain
.РФ for the Russian Federation.
.РФ was well supported at a government level with both President Dimitry
Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin both enthusiastic
supporters. So it was no surprise that the IDN would be warmly welcomed
by Russian people and businesses.
Currently the sunrise period for .РФ is underway with over 14,000 domain
names registered by Russian businesses. It is expected that there will
be over 50,000 domain names registered by the end of the sunrise period
in mid-September.
Currently around ten per cent of Russian trademark holders have
registered their domain to date. This uptake has been pleasantly
surprising with Alexey Lesnikov, Director General of RU-CENTER, the
leading .РФ registrar, telling DomainNews during the Brussels ICANN
meeting this has been in part due to the community consultation that
included building awareness with registrars, internet users, government
and other interested parties.
To boost this awareness RU-CENTER is also running seminars to inform
trademark holders of IDNs through a public relations campaign that
includes a series of seminars in Moscow and the regions.
"Cyrillic domain names will be widely used within Russia within five
years, especially within emails, and during this time Russian internet
users will become used to Cyrillic domains," Lesnikov said during the
Brussels ICANN meeting.
Prior to applying for the Cyrillic domain, RU-CENTER conducted opinion
polling and of more than 10,000 internet users who participated, about
60 per cent said "yes" to the idea of a Cyrillic domain.
One of the goals of the introduction of IDNs, according to Lesnikov, is
to broaden the appeal of domain names and encourage internet use.
Indeed, one of the most pleasing things, and a guide to how successful
the Cyrillic domain would be, was that his grandmother was impressed
with the idea. Breaking down language barriers for Russian users is
important as internet users not familiar with Latin characters found it
difficult to understand domain names.
Among internet users familiar with Cyrillic languages, it is anticipated
that the greater familiarity with the language will lead to lower
levels of cybercrime such as phishing as the users will be more aware of
the web addresses they are going to.
.РФ domain names will be available to the general public from Russia and
anyone else throughout the world who wishes to register one from late
2010 for around US$20. However the sunrise and then landrush sunrise
periods see those wanting to ensure they snare their preferred domain
name paying a premium.
The first part of Sunrise - 25 November - 11 May - Russian-language
trademark owners can register .РФ. Second part of Sunrise - 12 May - 14
July - Any trademark owners can register .РФ. The third period of
Sunrise - 15 July - 15 September - Owners of names of goods' and
services' origin, Mass-media, non-profit organisations and companies,
which names are not officially registered as trademarks. Cost per
registration during all parts of Sunrise is $40. Price during Landrush
(starts from 16 September) is now being discussed.
Alexey said that at first there were a discussion that prices for
Landrush should start from $300,000 but now the costs proposed are much
lower. More information about Sunrise is available here: za-rf.ru/node/103.
For those trademark holders taking part in the first part of the
sunrise, it was costing 1,200 roubles (approximately $40), From of July
for those eligible to apply for domains during the second part of the
sunrise period, including organisations involved in mass media and
not-for-profit organisations as well as company names not officially
registered as trademarks in the Russian territory. The sunrise period
officially ends on 16 September.
On other current topical domain name issues, IPv4 and IPv6 along with
DNSSEC, Lesnikov said these are not overly important but both will be
introduced in the medium term over coming years.
For more information on .РФ, check out the RU-CENTER website at za-rf.ru/en.