How ICANN has opened the floodgates to the world
The internet as we know it is changing. We, as latin root language speakers, have enjoyed only domain names in our alphabet (such as www.abc123.com). This has been, in large part, due to the fact that the internet was pioneered by the United States (well, to be specific, the United States Military… sorry Al Gore, you did not invent it).
The ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers… the overlord for all domain names) is migrating is role to be more internationally friendly. As a result, you’ll start seeing domain names written in other language scripts such as Russian, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, etc.
This move to a more international governance of the internet has caused alarm for many. Largely, many American companies are concerned about losing the rights and privileges that they’ve enjoyed by having a more Western governed internet.
The explanation given by ICANN is that they shifted to a more international stance with the understanding that if they did not, smaller nets (often regulated or governed by individual countries) would start popping up which would be under no regulations of the ICANN and would, thus, reduce the importance of the existing internet.
So what does this mean for us? Well, not much initially. But I feel that in the next 5 years or so that you’ll start seeing a huge increase in domain names that we are unable to read (or even type on our keyboards for that matter). But, with all changes such as these, opportunities are presented to cater to this new market and even prosper further. So, ask yourself, how is YOUR business affected by this? The answers and opportunities may surprise you.
