Icann tests global domain names

Icann, the standards body that oversees the internet addressing system, is to test Arabic, Chinese and other non-Roman characters in domain names.

The internet currently runs on an Ascii system with 26 letters of the alphabet, 10 numerals and a hyphen. But people in Asian and Arabic countries, whose languages can contain thousands of characters, are applying pressure to Icann to include their native scripts in web addresses.

Icann said in a statement: "There is a need to continue supporting multilingual access to the internet. One challenge in implementing multilingualism on the internet is the preparation of content in the numerous languages, alphabets, scripts, and character-sets that must be accommodated."

The new domains will be tested in the latter half of 2006 to ensure if they go live that they do not interfere with the current operation of the internet, which was not built to accommodate non-Latin languages.

Earlier this month the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry announced the creation of a new set of domain names - dot-cn, dot-com and dot-net - written in Chinese characters.

Experts are concerned the move could cause a division in the control of domains on the internet - and lead China to break away from Icann, which would undermine the global unity of DNS, the network of servers that resolves domain name requests.

Tom Espiner of ZDNet UK contributed to this report