Latin to lose its domain over Internet addresses

The body in charge of assigning the world's Internet users their online addresses on Friday said it had agreed to allow the use of any of the world's scripts, no longer just the Latin alphabet. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which approved the change at a meeting in Seoul, said in a statement it could lead to a dramatic rise in the number of Internet users. The program will be rolled out in stages, starting November 16. Initially, it will allow internationalized domain names (IDNs) using scripts such as Chinese, Korean or Arabic for the country code designators at the end of an address name. Eventually, the use of IDNs will be expanded to all types of Internet address names.