“New” Non-Latin Based Domain Name Extensions: What Is This All About?

November 19, 2009

You may have heard that ICANN (the group that manages naming conventions on the Internet) recently announced that domain names will now be allowed in non-Latin languages. This may not seem like a big issue from the US perspective, as we are all used to domain names in our native language, but this will have a significant positive impact to people in Asia, Russia and the Middle East. People in these regions and countries will soon be able to locate websites in their local language (languages under consideration include: Arabic, Persian, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean, Yiddish, Japanese, Tamil, Hebrew and Amharic). More information on the announcement is at: ICANN

  • Is this an issue for a company seeking a venture capital investment? 
  • Probably not, unless the company plans (in the foreseeable future) to have a web site in a non-Latin language. 

There are so many new domain name extensions, that I am numb from all those email alerts about new domain name extensions. However, while this one seems to fit into that category, for a small group of companies (that plan to roll out non-Latin language websites) this may be something they should pay attention to.

President and Shareholder

<strong>Jeremy Aber</strong> consults OpenView portfolio companies on legal and contract matters. Jeremy runs his own IT focused law firm, the <a href="http://www.aberlawfirm.com/">Aber Law Firm</a>, and has over 18 years experience in technology and corporate law.