Microsoft's latest release of Internet Explorer will drive demand for internationalized domain names, according to industry experts who are predicting a sharp increase in sales of foreign language domain names. That's because IE 7 has built-in support for IDNs, as does Firefox 2.0, also released in October.
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Member since:2005-10-02
Except that nobody understands Esperanto 
In Denmark we use the same approach as in Germany and other countries. We fit our names within pure ascii. So æ and ä becomes ae , ø and ö becomes oe, å becomes aa, ü become ue and so on.
This solution works better than any other solution.
EDIT: True, other languages are more widely spoken than English, but English is #1 language in the economic sector, and the no. 1 foreign language for the bigger part of the world. Add to that the fact that English is the most widely spoken language (either as first or second language) in the industrial world.
It doesn't matter what people speak amongst themselves - what matters are what they speak when communicating with persons from other language groups. And then English is #1.
Edited 2006-11-02 14:54
Member since:2005-08-18
"what matters are what they speak when communicating with persons from other language groups."
But the majority of people don't do that, most communicate mostly with people in their own language.
Why should Kim Chen in China have to use an english/ascii address when comunicating with his chinese friend Gong Li, whos also in China?
IDNA (which is what we are actually talking about) isn't a big problem because the IDNA names are only mapping/translations to actual ascii names which means that for every IDNA name there is a corresponding ascii name. IDNA resides solely in the application and does not affect the DNS infrastructure itself.
Member since:2005-07-09
IDN is intended for the native users of the language, not for people who don't speak it. Amazingly enough English isn't the worlds most widely natively spoken language and quite a few people don't speak it at all.
Yeah, well, those native users of the language will be really out of luck when they try to use IDNs without access to keyboards with the proper keyboard layout. Want to check your web mail at HügaBüga.de from an internet cafe in New York or London? Tough luck. And this is just one example, there are many more.
The Internet, and especially the World Wide Web, is all about easy access. We've spent decades to get the complexity out of it in order to make it both available and usable to the world. IDNs add a layer of complexity to both implementation and usability, exposing developers and users alike to a many problems ranging from security nightmares to accessibility disasters, and I've yet to hear a single convincing argument for them. I know am I not alone in thinking that the only ones that benefit from IDNs are the Registrars that sell them.
Member since:
2005-08-18
"And if you think that might be troublesome, wait untill you try to enter an Japanese or Chinese URL."
IDN is intended for the native users of the language, not for people who don't speak it. Amazingly enough English isn't the worlds most widely natively spoken language and quite a few people don't speak it at all.
"I have the feeling that IDNs will rather hurt the international spirit of the internet."
I guess the Internet should actually use Esperanto, eh?