DotAsia to Launch Internationalized Domain Names in 2010

Priority for Existing ".Asia" Domain Registrants for Corresponding IDNs Considered

HONG KONG, Nov. 18 -- Following announcements by ICANN to approve the use of Internationalized Domain Names (IDN), the global top- level domain ".Asia", will accept IDN registrations starting in the second half of 2010 to address pent up demand in Asia for multilingual web addresses.

"Asia is one of the most important regions for IDN. Asia is already the largest Internet marketplace with over 700 million users online, but that represents only 18.5% penetration. IDN will help bring the Internet to the rest of the people in Asia," said Edmon Chung, CEO of DotAsia. "Small Medium Enterprises around the world will benefit from IDN. Local SMEs in Asia can leverage their own brand in their own language to build an online presence with IDN, while global SMEs can become more Asian-friendly by adopting an Asian IDN as their address."

Today about 180 million domains are registered, representing an estimated US$10 billion annual market, including secondary market and value added services. The deployment of IDN can dramatically expand the domain market in Asia, as users and businesses recognize the investment value of domains.

DotAsia will release draft IDN launch policies in December 2009 and invite industry experts and users to provide input in an open process. Policies will be finalized in March 2010. Policies in development include Sunrise and Landrush provisions. Offering existing registrants priority to register their corresponding IDN domain, especially for Romanized names, will be considered. Further info: http://www.idn.asia/ .

DotAsia is the first generic top-level-domain (gTLD) to include IDN TLD in its application to ICANN. "Being an inventor of IDN technology, and having served on many technology and policy committees, it is exciting to see IDN happen after over 10 years of hardwork by the community," added Chung. "DotAsia and its members are pioneers of IDN, and are among the first to offer full IDN experiences to users in Asia."

DotAsia Organisation (http://www.registry.asia/ ) is a not-for-profit corporation promoting Internet development and adoption in Asia. The organization oversees the ".Asia" top-level Internet domain, and is an open consortium of top-level-domain authorities around the region: ".CN" (China), ".JP" (Japan), ".KR" (Korea), ".IN" (India), etc., and regional Internet organizations: APNIC, APNG, APCERT, etc. DotAsia aspires to embrace the Asia Century to become a nucleus for Internet development.

Source: DotAsia Organisation