This is a bad day for the English language, after ICANN approved non-Latin characters for use in Internet domain names. Having invented the Internet–40 years ago yesterday–the U.S. has given away whatever advantage it offers English-speakers.
This was bound to happen after the U.S. recently recanted on its “ownership” of the Internet in a new agreement with ICANN, the Internet’s primary governing body. At one level, I am happy that Internet users around the world will soon have domain names in their own character sets. Continue reading
Finally, the World Wide Web will live up to its name. The decision by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers that Web sites written in Russian, Chinese, Arabic, and other non-ASCII character sets will be able to have their Internet domain names displayed in their own languages truly makes the Web a global worldwide network. For the past 40 years (the Internet turned 40 this week) the Internet and the Web have been the exclusive domain of English language addresses. For non-English speaking countries it has been the real world equivalent to forcing them to use English language stationary.