Domain Registration Related News
Web aims to standardise alphabets
July 2004
A meeting is being held in Malaysia aimed at
helping web users who do not use the Western
alphabet.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (Icann), which oversees the system of web
addresses and domain names says Asians will make
up most of the net's users within a few years.
While Western letters are largely standardized,
those used in some alphabets vary from country to
country. This causes problems when typing web
addresses, which need to be precise.
Although the internet was developed in
English-speaking countries, the net's centre of
gravity is moving East. Icann says that more than
100 million people around the world have
high-speed broadband connections to the net, and
that nearly half of them are in Asia.
The company believes that within years most
internet users will live there, and they predict
it will have a huge economic impact on the region.
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