SEOUL - By the middle of next year, Internet surfers will be allowed to use Web addresses written completely in Chinese, Arabic, Korean, and other languages using non-Latin alphabets, the organization overseeing Internet domain names said yesterday in a decision that could make the Web more accessible.
In an action billed as one of the biggest changes in the Web’s four-decade history, the board of the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers - or Icann - voted yesterday during its annual meeting to allow such scripts in Internet addresses.
The decision is a “historic move toward the internationalization of the Internet,’’ said Rod Beckstrom, Icann’s president and chief executive.
Some security specialists have warned that allowing internationalized domain names in languages like Arabic, Russian, and Chinese could make it more difficult to fight cyberattacks, including malicious redirects and hacking. But Icann said it was ready for the challenge.
