Last month I talked about ICANNs new proposal to allow domain names with non Latin characters. The media has yet to realize the true implications of this, so I’m going to spell it out in “plain English”.
- www.pàypal.com
- www.ebày.com
- www.bànk.com
- www.päy.com
Notice that mark on your screen? In German its called an umlaut, also known as an accent mark. What does it mean for the Internet:
- An increase in phishing sites that look like the real thing.
- A new opportunity for typosquatters to profit from registering domain names.
So when is an a, not an à’ ? What happens when an international visitor goes to www.pàypal.com in their browser? Will they go to www.paypal.com or www.pàypal.com? That depends on the characterset they use!
For domainers, its time to start thinking about those new domain names to hand register. For corporates, it time to think about tracking down all those domain names with a view to getting them registered when this thing goes live.
Share and Enjoy:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
Tags: accent mark, expired domain names, icann, idn, international characters, security, umlaut
