In early 2009, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) plans to adopt the update for international domain names discussed since the beginning of this year reports Heise. The issue was discussed at the IETG meeting in Minneapolis last week. The report notes there were ongoing discussions “up until the last moment” on the “extent to which registries should be allowed to determine their own special language characteristics and how to use them.”

The authors of the standards series advocated stricter rules within the actual standard documents, while Vint Cerf said “registries know best about language specific problems”. The article goes on to outline complications due to numbers being written differently in Arabic languages, and even in western and eastern Arabic countries and depending on the solution reached, if there is an overlap of character sets “will at best cause confusion, at worst it will be exploited by phishers.”

To read this Heise article in full, see www.heise-online.co.uk/networks/International-domain-names-get-a-bit-closer-and-more-European-friendly–/news/112035.