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Originally Posted by DomainsInc  The thing i never understood about idn's is why they still use .com,.net. Seems kinda silly to have to type part of the url in language characters and the exention in english. |
That was ICANNs decision, not the end users for sure. They did the testbed for .idn urls last year, and are in the process of implementing them beginning later this year, and over the next few years. The answer quite simply is that ICANN just got around to implementing .idn extensions. There are some idn.com holders that want to keep their .com simply because of the strength of the .com brand. Since it has been used for over a decade, it is recognized worldwide as the top website url.
IDNs have been around for 8 years, but without built browser support to make them "work" they have been sidelined. Most top keywords have been held most of this time, or at least since 2004. Verisign introduced idn.com, idn.net etc. back in 2000'. The also proposed DNAME equivalence mapping for to .idn but the final form of how "alising" will be implemented is yet to be worked out. (see link below)
Verisign has the rights to make idn.com to equivalent of idn.idn (transliteral or translation of .com in various languages). There is pretty clear wording for their rights to keep .com, .net etc. as outlined in the GNSO working group documents. The same protections are there for the registries that own .cn, .jp etc. to get their equivalents in their countries languages. Exactly what will be the outcome of new .idn extensions is still to be determined but some are on what ICANN calls a "fast track" program.
http://www.icann.org/announcements/p...ld-12dec05.pdf