Think Different

T he Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, has set the ball rolling for web addresses in scripts other than Latin. This will allow uniform resource locators, as web addresses are called in virtual parlance, in languages other than English, including Hindi, Tamil or Bhojpuri. About half of the world's 1.6 billion Internet users use languages based on scripts other than Latin and may cheer the move. India, which has 50 million Internet users, speaks hundreds of languages. Icann, the non-profit group that oversees domain names, is meeting representatives from all over the world this week in Seoul to decide on this change, which will be one of the biggest in the 40 years of Internet. If it is cleared, Icann will begin accepting applications for non-Latin domain names and the first entries into the system are expected in the middle of next year. Icann is also to decide whether it can give users freedom on global top-level domain names. "If this happens, ...