Technology facilitating the registration of domain names with non-Roman alphabet characters has only recently become available. Domain names using these characters are being offered through a new multilingual test bed, or performance measurement system, announced by VeriSign Global Registry Services, scheduled to be implemented in late October. i-DNS is currently a key technology partner in the rollout of the test bed, and register.com intends to be among the first phase test bed registrars to offer multilingual domain names. In addition to Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, other languages, including Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese, are expected to be added through the year 2000 and into 2001.
"Our customers count on register.com to be on the cutting edge of all new domain product development, so adding multilingual domain name registration to our current suite of services is one of our top priorities," stated Richard Forman, CEO and President of register.com. "The explosive growth of Internet usage in non-English speaking countries has led to a new market need for reliable, multilingual domain names for Internet users and e-commerce initiatives worldwide. We've found in i-DNS what we believe to be is the highest quality technology solution to offer the ever-growing Internet community."
i-DNS technology will make the Internet truly multilingual and accessible to register.com customers regardless of language, location, or alphabet. Since the current Domain Name System only supports Roman-alphabet-based domain addresses, i-DNS technology gives register.com the ability to register and use multilingual domain names in their native language and alphabet. i-DNS's technology, which is based on the encoding standard Unicode, currently supports more than 55 languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Hebrew, Russian and Thai. It is fully compatible with Internet browsers and seamlessly operates with the Internet's current Domain Name System. i-DNS also has developed a suite of tools and products that facilitate the registration and use of multilingual domain names on the register.com web site.
"The availability of multilingual .com, .net and .org domain names is a major step towards the promise of the Internet as a truly global medium for e-business, collaboration and communication", said i-DNS CEO Michael Ng. "Our partnership with register.com will enable the use of native language domain names by the large segment of non-English speaking people in the world. Ultimately, this partnership will help speed adoption of the Internet in emerging markets and bridge the digital divide. "
Register.com will also provide specialized multilingual domain registration services to register.com Corporate Customers, including high-volume registration, international brand protection and translation services for companies seeking to register trademarks and domains in non-English characters. These services will allow companies to secure registrations for their trademarks and products at the earliest point possible.
About Register.com, Inc.
Register.com, Inc. (www.register.com) provides domain name registration and other Internet services for individuals and businesses that wish to have a unique address and a branded identity on the Internet, including domain name resale services through its subsidiary, Afternic.com. Register.com also provides telcos, ISPs and other online businesses and communities with the ability to offer, brand and manage their own unique version of the register.com domain registration and Web site creation services. The first registrar to compete in the domain registration market after the U.S. government deregulated the industry in 1999, Register.com has processed over two million domain registrations. The company was founded in 1994 and is based in New York City. For more information, please visit http://www.register.com.
