During a professional conference held last weekend in Vancouver, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) officially approved a new Internet domain, .asia, specifically designed for Asian countries.
With this approval, in addition to the specific country domains such as .jp, .cn, .vn, etc., organizations and companies in Asia can now register their websites under the .asia domain, similar to the .eu domain that ICANN approved at the end of November 2005.
The registration process for the .asia domain will begin six months after ICANN’s specialized committees officially make their final approval decision. Currently, ICANN and the DotAsia Organization are engaged in discussions that may last from several weeks to several months to finalize a detailed contract regarding the existence of the .asia domain. Thus, the DotAsia Organization will operate the .asia domain in the Asia-Pacific region, and all transactions related to the .asia domain must go through this organization.
ICANN is also discussing methods that would allow web addresses to exist in languages such as Chinese, Arabic, and other countries using scripts similar to Russian. The technical process of establishing web addresses in these languages proves to be much more complex than in English.
Earlier last week, ICANN also officially voted against the establishment of the .xxx domain, which was intended for adult websites.
Additionally, ICANN has decided to increase the registration and maintenance fees for the .com domain by approximately 7% starting in 2007. This price increase will provide VeriSign, the company that manages the .com domain, with an additional revenue of about $17 million, a portion of which will be transferred back to ICANN to support its operational activities.
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