It was announced by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) this week that International Domain Names (IDNs) are to be made available by early to mid 2010. IDNs will allow for registration of domain names that do not use the latin alphabet, instead using local language characters, for example Chinese or Arabic. ICANN chairman Peter Dengate Thrush described the new system as “the biggest technical change to the Internet since it was created four decades ago”.

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