Lesley Cowley, CEO at Nominet,the national registry for .uk domain names, who is at the ICANN meeting in Korea made some comments about the fast track process for internationalised domain names.
"The introduction of internationalised domain names (IDNs) is a major turning point in the history of the Internet. There are currently an estimated 1.6 billion people using the Internet and a further 5 billion who are not yet online - most of these people are from nations where their language is not based on the Latin script.
Opening up the web to allow Asian, Arabic and other non-Latin based scripts will give this large group of people easier access to the web, helping to bring them online and making the Internet more inclusive. This move will undoubtedly bring freedom to a globally connected community.
For brand owners there is a requirement to be aware and plan for the introduction of these new domains, whether it’s for brand protection purposes, or to market via this new channel.
IDNs have been undergoing tests for the last three years and starting 16th November 2009 countries can apply to test country-code Top-Level Domains. We expect to see the first of these non-Latin based scripts coming into use during 2010."