 |
| Source: ICANN. |
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) introduced the ICANN Internationalised Domain Name (IDN) programme to Thailand under the auspices of the Electronic Transactions Development Agency of Thailand (ETDA).
According to Thailand’s Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, there are currently 35 million active Internet users in Thailand, with a penetration rate of 54%. The country also has 97 million mobile connections, many of which have Internet connectivity. These numbers can be expected to increase with new generic top level domains (gTLDs) and IDNs.
Thai experts from policy, technical and linguistic fields join a Label Generation Panel (LGR) to determine the rules to form valid top-level domains in Thai script. To pave the way for local Thai communities to come online using domain names in local languages, it is necessary to ensure that different scripts are effectively supported. This requires local community participation.
 |
| Source: ICANN. Label generation rules formation is just beginning for Greek, Sinhala and Thai. |
“IDNs are domain names represented by letters or characters from different scripts and writing systems. They offer the possibility of using the domain names in languages across the globe, including, Thai, Chinese, Hindi, and others. Thus providing a truly multilingual Internet with greater flexibility and opportunities for billions of users,” said Sarmad Hussain, ICANN’s Senior Manager for IDN Program.
“ICANN looks forward to the active participation of the Thai expert community members to determine the rules for formulating valid top-level domain labels in Thai script. This work will form the basis for allowing complete domain names in the Thai language,” said Rinalia Abdul Rahim, an ICANN board member.
Each Generation Panel is comprised of a Chair and a number of community representatives, as well as members with technical expertise in the following areas: Domain Name System, IDN, Unicode and linguistics of the relevant script, such as Thai script.
“As you may know, most Thai people are not familiar with using the English language in daily life. Developing rules for IDN top-level domains for the Thai script is a breakthrough of the language barrier for Thai people, so that they are able to access the Internet in Thai script,” said Surangkana Wayuparb, CEO of ETDA.
“The Royal Thai Government has announced that by 2017, Thailand will be a digital economic society. In this regard, ETDA takes the lead on soft infrastructure for the country needs to ensure that Thailand could achieve this goal as a digital economy society. This means that we need to ensure that the digital divide due to language barriers will be reduced. We believe that this is a game changer for the future of the Internet for Thailand.”
“The action plan will be laid out step by step to ensure that we are able to implement the Thai LGR project effectively and (in a timely manner),” said Wayuparb, who is the proposed Chair of the new Thai LGR panel.
The group attending the workshop will submit a proposal to ICANN to form the Thai Label Generation Panel. Currently, for the Asia region, Generation Panels for 28 scripts across the world, including for Arabic, Armenian, Chinese, Japanese, Khmer and Neo-Brahmi scripts and writing systems. ICANN recently conducted similar workshops for communities in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.
The Khmer script community established its Generation Panel in June following the workshop and has already started forming rules for valid top-level domain labels for the Khmer script.
Interested?
Find out more about the new gTLDs at the ICANN website
Learn more about the IDNs at the ICANN website
Read the TechTrade Asia post on ICANN's focus on generic top level domains in Asia Pacific
No comments:
Post a Comment