In a widely publicized move, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has decided to allow website URL addresses to be written in non-Latin characters. Starting in November of this year, countries and territories will be able to apply for ccTLDs (Country Code Top Level Domain) that are written in non-Latin characters. For example, China will be able to apply for the .测试 ccTLD in additional to the Latin character .cn ccTLD it currently uses. This will set the path to registration of TLDs in foreign languages such as Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Farsi, Hebrew and more.
Most of the over 1,000 news articles that have been written on this topic since the final decision was made by ICANN on October 30, 2009 have focused on what this means to the Internet user. The sentiment is that this will make it easier for non-English speakers to use the Internet and will ultimately deepen Internet penetration in many countries worldwide. But this is at best a theory, and probably not even a good one. The fact is that most Internet users look for and find information on the Internet in their native language using search engines. Very few Internet users look for information by typing a website address in their browser. The big search engine companies Google, Yahoo and Bing support all but the most obscure languages, not to mention the thousands of regional search engines that are dedicated to a specific language (for example Baidu, the Chinese search engine which is one of the top 10 ranked websites in the world). So should Internet squatters (remember them?) rush out to register 水稻.测试 (the Chinese equivalent of www.rice.com)? I’m not so sure. Maybe having rice.com will give you a boost in search engine rankings for keyword searches for ‘rice,’ but it will definitely not guarantee a number 1 spot on Google. Nor will it by itself guarantee a huge amount of website traffic.
The most immediate beneficiary of this move is not the Internet user in China, Egypt or Teheran. It is first and foremost a move that benefits ICANN itself as well as the United States of America. Why? I can think of a few reasons:
- Money. This move is a gold mine for ICANN, which will charge US$26,000 and up to 3% of the future IDN ccTLD registration revenues (ICANN payment guidelines can be found here). There are currently almost 300 ccTLDs (check IANA page for entire list). Projecting that the number of IDN ccTLDs will be equal or more than this number, the ICANN stands to make tens of millions of dollars in the next two years.
- Continued control. Everyone is saying that the number of Internet users that speak Chinese will eventually exceed the number of Internet users that speak English. So what’s to stop China from forming its own version of ICANN? By using a ‘don’t beat ‘em join ‘em’ approach, ICANN may be able to gain time and stave off such efforts by other government-/country-backed organizations.
- World politics. The United Nations (UN) is a worldwide organization but its headquarters is based in New York. The US is the true power broker behind the UN, everyone knows that. Similarly, the non-profit organization called ICANN is basically an extension of the US government DOC (Department of Commerce). And it is based in California. So you don’t have to be an expert in Political Science to realize that an Internet controlled by ICANN is an Internet controlled by the USA. Whoever controls the Internet controls the world, or at least has a serious advantage in monitoring and controlling the flow of information in the world.
- Business. The US economy is highly dependent on the Internet. While many of the old-economy companies (like the automotives and banks) are faltering, the tech sector has been the locomotive which is providing new jobs and hope for economic recovery. ICANN, through its control of the Internet, provides Internet-related companies in the USA with a definite edge.
