http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/10/AR2007101002642_pf.html
A Script for Every Surfer
By Catherine Rampell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 11, 2007; D01
HEADLINE: Responding to criticism from the non-English- speaking world, the U.S. firm that oversees the Internet will test domains in foreign characters.
PARTIAL TEXT: Is the World Wide Web truly worldwide? Depends on whom you ask. Since the Internet came into widespread use, those among the 70 percent of the world that doesn't speak English have argued that the Web is inaccessible. So next week the nonprofit group contracted by the U.S. government to run the Internet will begin testing domain names in other alphabets.
On Monday, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will conduct a test to see whether domains written entirely in foreign scripts can work without crashing the Net. For several years, the company has allowed domains that are half in foreign characters, such as [Chinese text].com or [Arabic text].org. For the test, domain names will look like [Korean text].[Korean text]. END QUOTE
A Script for Every Surfer
By Catherine Rampell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 11, 2007; D01
HEADLINE: Responding to criticism from the non-English- speaking world, the U.S. firm that oversees the Internet will test domains in foreign characters.
PARTIAL TEXT: Is the World Wide Web truly worldwide? Depends on whom you ask. Since the Internet came into widespread use, those among the 70 percent of the world that doesn't speak English have argued that the Web is inaccessible. So next week the nonprofit group contracted by the U.S. government to run the Internet will begin testing domain names in other alphabets.
On Monday, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will conduct a test to see whether domains written entirely in foreign scripts can work without crashing the Net. For several years, the company has allowed domains that are half in foreign characters, such as [Chinese text].com or [Arabic text].org. For the test, domain names will look like [Korean text].[Korean text]. END QUOTE
