Egypt launches Arabic web domain. BBC

[sarcle]

Egypt will open the world's first Arabic language internet domain, its communications minister has said.


Mr Kamel, who was speaking at the start of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) being held in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, said a formal announcement would be made on Monday.
Registration for addresses with the .masr ending would begin at midnight (2200 GMT), he said


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8361676.stm

Am I reading that right? Egypt is going to allow registration right away?


We’ve reported previously that non-English top-level domain names would soon be available (http://erictric.com/online/internet-landscape-about-to-change-with-inclusion-of-non-latin-web-addresses) — and today’s the start of registration for .masr [.مصر] domain names. The TLD, will represent the country of Egypt, and literally translates to “.Egypt”.

http://erictric.com/world/arabic-top-level-domain-name-registrations-begin

[Drewbert]

2nd out of the gate, after Russia?

[sarcle]

2nd out of the gate, after Russia?

Maybe first if they are going to allow open registration right out of the gate. Right now Russia is just taking pre-orders.

[555]

2nd out of the gate, after Russia?
Russia is waking up to .рф
http://news.mail.ru/economics/3049286

So who takes 1st place?
Egypt handed the packet to Beckstrom in Egypt?

[Drewbert]

Actually I guess China is first, really.

I think Russia 2nd and Egypt 3rd?

I can find zero mention of it on their site

http://lookup.egregistry.eg/

[alibuba]

So tom Egypt will be the first to utilize idn.idn using their cctld.

very exciting :)

[sbe18]

is Egypt and the UAE using the same infrastructure..?
and pricing...

thx...

[domainguru]

aren't we getting ahead of ourselves? the fast-track process only opened today? isn't this just some kind of national pre-reg queue opening?

[Rubber Duck]

aren't we getting ahead of ourselves? the fast-track process only opened today? isn't this just some kind of national pre-reg queue opening?

Probably not, even if they are not delegated, there is little to stop them actually starting the registration process. They know they will get something, even if their preferred string is rejected. All they need to do is included a few phrases in the small print.

[domainguru]

OK, but that's still a pre-registration in my book ;-)

[Rubber Duck]

OK, but that's still a pre-registration in my book ;-)

Well to me preregistration mean being ripped off by a registrar that has no bloody chance of getting the name. Here you will probably be 100% certain but just have to wait a while for it to function properly.

The fascinating thing from my perspective, however, is that it has been stated many times that only UAE and Saudi would be in the first wave. That information, like much of the other information kicking around seems to be completely changed. Egypt has changed the constitution to rename the country dot Com by any chance has it?

[yanni]

It may be that UAE and Saudi apps are also in since we have 6 requests/ 3 languages
Chinese, Russian, and Arabic - Egypt, UAE, SA.

[yanni]

http://www.novinite.com/media/images/2009-11/photo_verybig_109996.jpg

Bulgaria's Ministry of Transport, IT, and Communications is starting a procedure for registering Internet domains in Cyrillic.

This has been announced Sunday by the Transport Minister, Alexander Tsvetkov.

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=109996

Smile, Mo.:D

[sarcle]

http://www.novinite.com/media/images/2009-11/photo_verybig_109996.jpg



http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=109996



I don't think Bulgaria is getting .бг but I could be wrong. I think they wont get the extension for the same reason Russia wasn't going to get .py and had to go for .po. .бг can be easily confused with an actual country code of Brazil (.br) which disqualifies it right off the bat.

[Rubber Duck]

I don't think Bulgaria is getting .бг but I could be wrong. I think they wont get the extension for the same reason Russia wasn't going to get .py and had to go for .po. .бг can be easily confused with an actual country code of Brasil (.br) which disqualifies it right off the bat.

Somewhere else that is doomed to using IDN.com then. :rolleyes:

[sarcle]

Somewhere else that is doomed to using IDN.com then. :rolleyes:

Tough luck for us, eh? :D

[yanni]

Somewhere else that is doomed to using IDN.com then. :rolleyes:

I fail to see the reasoning behind this.

If .бг is not awarded to Bulgaria they could go for РБ [Република България] or anything that they find suitable. After all бг is the translit of their ascii cctld, also country code.

Egypt went for .egypt not dot .eg [translit]
Greece is -most probably- going for .ελ [Ελλας-Greece], not the .gr translit [.γρ], which would be meaningless in Greek anyway.
I don't see why their conditioning will change if their icctld will not be a translit of their current cctld.

All speculation of course.

[Rubber Duck]

No, of course they can go with something else, but they have banged out a lot of publicity on this. This domain is instilled in my mind, and I am not Bulgarian. Long slow and expensive process to turn the boat 180 degree from here one feels. At the end of the day, it is not so much the name as the branding that goes into the name. A lot of branding capital wasted in my opinion.


I fail to see the reasoning behind this.

If .бг is not awarded to Bulgaria they could go for РБ [Република България] or anything that they find suitable. After all бг is the translit of their ascii cctld, also country code.

Egypt went for .egypt not dot .eg [translit]
Greece is -most probably- going for .ελ [Ελλας-Greece], not the .gr translit [.γρ], which would be meaningless in Greek anyway.
I don't see why their conditioning will change if their icctld will not be a translit of their current cctld.

All speculation of course.

[yanni]

A lot of branding capital wasted in my opinion.

Naah. A few press releases when the new cctld is approved and all will be fine.
Don't forget, we're talking about government here. TV and traditional press will be sucking up the govt. press release like there's no tomorrow. After all, it's a matter of national pride, coupled with the workings and experience of Communist-era propaganda. Bulgarians will be singing .РБ [or whatever] in no time at all.
Cost - zero.
Result - Priceless.

[sarcle]

I fail to see the reasoning behind this.

If .бг is not awarded to Bulgaria they could go for РБ [Република България] or anything that they find suitable. After all бг is the translit of their ascii cctld, also country code.

All speculation of course.

They can go with something else for sure. They most likely will have to as it does violate the .IDN fast-track terms of introducing a confusing existing similar extension.

You can make all kinds of latin looking IDNs from Cyrillic. Think of the threat that poses to Brazilians if Bulgaria's extension was accepted.

But they've already put this extension in the minds of their population and the world. It will be hard as Dave said to rebrand something and have the people accept it. Which I think Russia will have a hard time doing also. Everyone was expecting .py.

And of course this is just my opinion.

[blastfromthepast]

I don't think Bulgaria is getting .бг but I could be wrong. I think they wont get the extension for the same reason Russia wasn't going to get .py and had to go for .po. .бг can be easily confused with an actual country code of Brazil (.br) which disqualifies it right off the bat.

:rolleyes:

[Rubber Duck]

Am I reading that right? Egypt is going to allow registration right away?


Well that is what Auntie wrote, but whilst she may be ten times more reliable than CNN, I wouldn't put money on her getting the fact straight.

[Drewbert]

I don't think there is anything wrong with the ccTLD operators taking registrations immediately.

It'll be great, because the day they get added to the root, there will be 1000's of new domains going live.

[Rubber Duck]

I don't think there is anything wrong with the ccTLD operators taking registrations immediately.

It'll be great, because the day they get added to the root, there will be 1000's of new domains going live.

I don't see it being a problem either, but what it does mean is a lot of people are going to get sold on IDN and then almost immediately disillusioned. Hopefully, some of those people will then go after their dot Coms. This will especially be so if a road map on aliasing dot com starts to emerge. Of course we are all sort of assuming that ICANN could run a piss-up in a brewery.

[sarcle]

I don't see it being a problem either, but what it does mean is a lot of people are going to get sold on IDN and then almost immediately disillusioned. Hopefully, some of those people will then go after their dot Coms.

I don't think they'll be disillusioned with being able to use their own language even if there's a wait. The wait I believe will just have them coming in droves to .com in the meantime. It's the local awareness of being able to use their own script that's the most important thing. Something natives haven't had at all. Shit, IDN.com didn't seemingly exist according to Icann until yesterday. Awareness is our ally.

[Rubber Duck]

I don't think they'll be disillusioned with being able to use their own language even if there's a wait. The wait I believe will just have them coming in droves to .com in the meantime. It's the local awareness of being able to use their own script that's the most important thing. Something natives haven't had at all. Shit, IDN.com didn't seemingly exist according to Icann until yesterday. Awareness is our ally.

The reality check is whether they get the names they dream of or whether they have already gone. Fore each half decent domain their will be at least a dozen dreamers.

[sarcle]

The reality check is whether they get the names they dream of or whether they have already gone.

Man I always had my belief it was going to be Japanese that hit first. But I really now think it will be Arabic.

[Rubber Duck]

Man I always had my belief it was going to be Japanese that hit first. But I really now think it will be Arabic.

I personally haven't thought it would be Japanese for a while. I think Russia is going to be where it is at.

[sarcle]

Cyrillic .ukr domain unlikely to be registered, market operator says


The regional Cyrillic domain .ukr is unlikely to be registered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Internet Invest Ltd. President Oleksandr Olshansky considers.
According to Olshansky, the main reason for this is the peculiarities of the rules for non-Latinic domains recently approved by the company, under which at least one letter should differ in the shape from the corresponding Latin one.
On November 17 Ukrainian Channel 5 reported that an application for the registration of the Cyrillic .ukr domain had been submitted to the ICANN.
The participants in the Internet market polled by Interfax-Ukraine did not confirm the report, but said the application could have been be submitted by Ukrnames Ltd. (CenterofInternetNamesofUkraine, Kharkiv), which earlier provided services on the registration of names with the .ukr domain, for which users have to have additional software.
In June 2008 the ICANN approved a document that foresees the introduction of high-level domain names in Cyrillic and other national non-Latin alphabets.


http://www.interfax.com.ua/eng/eco/25344

[Rubber Duck]

Dot Com rules again. Actually I get nearly half as much traffic on my Russian from the Ukraine as I do from Russia.

[sarcle]

Dot Com rules again. Actually I get nearly half as much traffic on my Russian from the Ukraine as I do from Russia.

Same on this end. And yes, another win for .com.

[555]

Dot Com rules again. Actually I get nearly half as much traffic on my Russian from the Ukraine as I do from Russia.

I was surprised to see they even tried, if Russia didn't get .ru due to that same problem i don't think they stand a chance.

The owner of the 2nd biggest registrar in Russia (Reg .ru) which is involved in the group that works on IDN's in Russia talked about that issue a couple of weeks ago (all characters may be confused with latin characters) on .ykp .укр issue: http://seopult.tv/video/domenrf

[Drewbert]

Yup. They're going to have to come up with something weird-arse unfortunately.

[sarcle]

Yup. They're going to have to come up with something weird-arse unfortunately.

I don't see it as unfortunate. I personally am happy Russia is not getting .py, Bulgaria most likely get .br, now Ukraine won't get theirs. People will just have to rely on the old fashion .com to get their IDN.

[Drewbert]

Yes but that's putting personal gain over Internet usability in one particular country.

You'll go far, in politics.

[sarcle]

You'll go far, in politics.

How did you know I was running for congressman? :D

Really though. They knew the rules before they submitted their .IDNs. The fact that they would submit an extension only to know that it'll be rejected is their own doing. Not to mention all the restrictions each country will put on them. It'll be hard for even a Russian to get a generic.po. That's the bureaucrats own doing.

If .com is the viable alternative then so be it. And .com has always been accessible, even if the natives haven't even realized it yet.

[Rodopi]

Hello,

As being from Bulgaria, and personally involved with one of the fast-track applicants (yes, they are three here - ascii cctld operator, independent domain registrars association and a group around isoc.bg, and the government doesnt know yet who will support), I would like to post a few questions / comments here.

1. How .бг is similar to .br (uppercase .БГ vs .BR)? Am I blind , but I dont see nothing in common. б and b are completely different, г rarely could be seen as r
The ICANN similarity tool (http://icann.sword-group.com/algorithm/) gives only 26% score.

2. Don't forget, we're talking about government here. TV and traditional press will be sucking up the govt. press release like there's no tomorrow. After all, it's a matter of national pride, coupled with the workings and experience of Communist-era propaganda. Bulgarians will be singing .РБ [or whatever] in no time at all.

Its not true. Bulgaria has about 21 % of the people completely against IDN technology. They will be very happy.
Others will boykott .РБ , only because it looks like .РФ ,and those people dislike Russia.
If Bulgaria has to go with .РБ , there will be only defensive registrations by companies and not so many live sites.

And finally, I see similarity between .ру and .py , between .укр and .ykp ,but nothing between .бг and .br

[Rubber Duck]

Yes, only 26%, but

bf Reserved Name 78
bt Reserved Name 73
et Reserved Name 68

Where the fuck did ICANN buy this piece of shit!

[Drewbert]

And finally, I see similarity between .ру and .py , between .укр and .ykp ,but nothing between .бг and .br

Right.

It's not as if there isn't already major problems with lowercase 'l' and capital 'I' in many instances, along with double 'v' easily mistaken for w (and the subject of many phishing domain sales at eBay).

On reflection I think .бг and .br are sufficiently different.

I'll guess we'll have to wait and see what the propellorheads say.

Good to see you here Rodopi!