Global Arab Network | ICT - Arabic Domain Names May Soon Be Coming to the Internet

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ICT - Arabic Domain Names May Soon Be Coming to the Internet

By Zakaria Fawzi

Friday, 20 November 2009 00:13

Internet_Corporation_for_Assigned_Names__Numbers

In what is being hailed as the ""biggest change"" to the way the internet works in 40 years, non-Latin language domain names will soon be a reality. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) recently announced that it will soon start accepting applications from countries around the world for Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) in the official languages - whether it is Arabic, Chinese, Greek or Japanese. ICANN is the world governing body for internet domain names.

Rod Beckstrom, ICANN Chief Executive Officer and President, said the change is being made in recognition of the fact that more than half of the Internet users worldwide speak languages with non-Latin scripts.

Mohammad Al-Basheer, Head of Internet, Numbering and Interconnection Section at ictQATAR's Regulatory Authority and an ICANN system expert has been actively involved in the discussions on creating new domain IDNs in different languages. Al-Basher shares some of the history on internet domain names and the challenges being faced in the Arab world on naming with ictQATAR's e-newsletter readers.

The Basics of the Internet Address System:
The Internet address system is based on transferring domain names into IP addresses, which contain Internet content and services. For example when an address is typed, such as www. ictQATAR.qa, requesting request to an IP address is made that contains all the information and graphics shared by ictQATAR on a specific server. The address system was basically designed to be an easy formula for enabling Internet users to quickly access contents and services.

The existing Internet address system dates back to the 1960s, when the TCP/IP was developed by Dr. Vinton Cerf. This system is divided into two main sections; the first is Generic Top Level Domains "gTLD" like .com, .org, .net, .edu, .gov. The second is Country Code Top Level Domains "ccTLD" ending with a domain in the form of two letters, symbolizing a certain country at the end of the address, like the domain of Qatar , .qa. These two main sections of the Internet address domains depend on English in writing Internet site domains.

Growth in Non-English Content
As the Internet has become more and essential for business, trade, communication, education and information sharing, the demographics of a typical Internet user has changed dramatically from an only tech savvy, educated group to the entire world population. The huge expansion in users brought many languages to the Internet and English no longer is the main language of Internet content, with Chinese now accounting for about 35%. Despite this, English remains the main script for Internet Domain Name System (DNS).

Many countries began to see English only domains as a limiting factor for their citizens to access information online. In China, Chinese Internet users uses a computer with a Chinese-letter keyboard as and an operating system run in ChinsesChinese, yet had to learn English to access an Internet site.

Pressures to Internationalize Internet Administration
Under increased world pressure to make the internet more open to other languages, ICANN formed a technical group to determine standards for DNS in world languages. Eleven languages, including Arabic, were tested within the main servers of a test internet environment 2007 to determine feasibility. Many of the initial tests proved successful, however, there remained considerable disagreement among countries on how to move forward, especially in terms of governance.

Most countries agreed that there needed to be a more world view of internet naming, however the approaches differed. Many developing countries supported a model for administering the Internet based on government control, while many European countries and non-governmental organizations opined that a leading role should be given to the private sector and that governments should be kept away from such administration. Ultimately a decision was made to have ICANN retain its role as the internet governance body, yet to have ongoing discussions at regular Internet Governance Forums to address emerging issues.

The US played the leading role in ICANN until current President Barak Obama amended the ICANN accord with the American government in September 2009, providing ICANN with more autonomy and allow for greater input from the rest of the world.

Progress Towards Arabic Internet Domains
In a bid to narrow the information gap between the Arab world and the West Arab countries have adopted a decision to Arabize the Internet through creating an experimental environment for Arab Internet sites (domain names). This will enable Arab countries to gain valuable experience in operating Arabic domain names. The project, entitled Arab Project for Domain Names on the Internet, was launched in 2005 with Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Oman, Palestine and Tunisia all participating.

The primary goal of the project is to promote Internet usage in Arab countries by removing linguistic barriers. This is also viewed as a way to help share Arab culture on with other cultures.

Even with the creation of Arabic language domain names, creation of quality Arabic content is still a major obstacle to adoption. Despite the rise in the number of Internet users in Arab countries, statistics show that Arabs' contribution to world online content is very low and does come close to matching Arab countries' capabilities. According to a UN report, Arab online content accounts for 3% of the world Internet content.

Al-Basheer sees two primary reasons for this shortage in Arab e-content. The first is the high cost of uploading the content to the Internet, especially in terms of creation of effective websites. , The emergence of blogs and social media sites makes this less of an obstacle, however the Arab world has yet to embrace these new mediums in the right way.

The second major issue is the many dialects of Arabic in the world, which are often extremely localized. Overall, there are no universal standards applied to Arabic and sometimes one dialect is not accessible to broader audiences. Al Basheer sees Arabic universities and educational institutions as forces that could drive standardization.

With Arabic internet domain names just around the corner, if Arabic content grows, people in the Arab world will have equal opportunities and equal access to the benefits of the internet - without language as a barrier.

Global Arab Network

Source: ictQATAR's e-newsletter