MEDIA RELEASE PR37159
DotAsia to Launch Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) in 2010
HONG KONG, Nov. 18 /PRNewswire-Asia-AsiaNet/ --
Priority for Existing ".Asia" Domain Registrants for Corresponding IDNs Considered
Following announcements by ICANN to approve the use of Internationalized Domain
Names (IDN), the global top-level domain ".Asia", will accept IDN registrations starting
in the second half of 2010 to address pent up demand in Asia for multilingual web
addresses.
"Asia is one of the most important regions for IDN. Asia is already the largest
Internet marketplace with over 700 million users online, but that represents only 18.5%
penetration. IDN will help bring the Internet to the rest of the people in Asia," said
Edmon Chung, CEO of DotAsia. "Small Medium Enterprises around the world will benefit
from IDN. Local SMEs in Asia can leverage their own brand in their own language to
build an online presence with IDN, while global SMEs can become more Asian-friendly by
adopting an Asian IDN as their address."
Today about 180 million domains are registered, representing an estimated US$10
billion annual market, including secondary market and value added services. The
deployment of IDN can dramatically expand the domain market in Asia, as users and
businesses recognize the investment value of domains.
DotAsia will release draft IDN launch policies in December 2009 and invite industry
experts and users to provide input in an open process. Policies will be finalized in
March 2010. Policies in development include Sunrise and Landrush provisions. Offering
existing registrants priority to register their corresponding IDN domain, especially for
DotAsia is the first generic top-level-domain (gTLD) to include IDN TLD in its
application to ICANN. "Being an inventor of IDN technology, and having served on many
technology and policy committees, it is exciting to see IDN happen after over 10 years
of hardwork by the community," added Chung. "DotAsia and its members are pioneers of
IDN, and are among the first to offer full IDN experiences to users in Asia."
promoting Internet development and adoption in Asia. The organization oversees the
".Asia" top-level Internet domain, and is an open consortium of top-level-domain
authorities around the region: ".CN" (China), ".JP" (Japan), ".KR" (Korea), ".IN"
(India), etc., and regional Internet organizations: APNIC, APNG, APCERT, etc. DotAsia
aspires to embrace the Asia Century to become a nucleus for Internet development.
Contact:
Ping Wong
Tel: +852-3165-1496
idn@registry.asia
SOURCE DotAsia Organisation
NEWS 
