Domain names ending with "." plus the Chinese character for China
or the Chinese character for Chinese will now get a global license
according to a recent agreement on the use of multi-language in the
domain name system by the Board of Directors of Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in Bucharest,
said the sources from the
China Internet Network
Information Center (CNNIC).
ICANN is a corporation that was formed to assume responsibility for
IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain
name system management, and root server system management
functions. The head of the ICANN Multi-language Domain Name
Committee delivered a report of "Suggestions on Multi-languages
Development Policy" to the Board and gained full approval of the
Board. This resolution means ICANN will introduce multi-language
domain names into the present domain name system and establish top
level domain names, including geographic, language, cultural and
racial domain names in multi-languages.
As
the preset domain system was set up by American scientists,
English-speaking countries get most of the advantages and
interests. For a long time, non-English speaking countries have
made continuous efforts in developing domain names in their own
languages, but were cold-shouldered. With fast development of the
Internet, non-English speaking countries, such as South Korea,
Japan, and China, gradually became important countries in Internet
popularization and usage. Hence, it's natural for the international
domain name system to make changes to meet this new situation.
In
China, by June 30, 2002, the number of computers connected to the
Internet exceeded 16.13 million and Internet users reached 45.80
million, according to the Tenth Survey Report on Internet
Development in China by CNNIC.
The survey also revealed the increasing trend of Internet users in
China based on the former ten half-yearly CNNIC national reports on
Internet development, the number of Internet users in China reached
its current apex in January 2000 and then declined. But an upturn
trend re-appeared since January 2002. Research people from CNNIC
said that the slowing increase of Internet users could be partly
explained by the huge base of Chinese netizens. But the present
upturn could indicate another golden time for Chinese Internet
development is approaching. Meanwhile, the rather low level of
Internet application rate in this country and China's 45.80 million
Internet users representing only 3.6 percent of the total
population, leaves huge space for further development.
(china.org.cn, August 10, 2002)