"It is ironic and unfortunate that many people around the world have had to resort to using a number as a domain name," said Michael Ng, CEO of i-DNS International. "In the new economy, domain names are virtual electronic brands and customers are going to appreciate the need for localized domain names in the local language."
For example, some non-English Web sites use a string of numbers as their domain names because numbers are much easier for many non-English speaking people to remember than an unfamiliar English name, said Ng.
The non-English Internet users currently comprise an estimated 40 percent of gloabal Internet infrastructure.
In the coming months, the Network Solutions Registry is expected to open a test bed that will allow registration of multilingual domain names through the more than 60 active registers accredited by ICANN (Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers). i-DNS's technology is to enable popular .com, .net and .org domain names to be registered in a selection of 52 different languages used globally.
The company already launched its service in many markets, including Singapore, mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Egypt and the U.S.
