Domain names ending with "." plus the Chinese character for China or the Chinese character for Chinese will now get a global license according to a recent agreement on the use of multi-language in the domain name system by the Board of Directors of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in Bucharest, said the sources from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).

ICANN is a corporation that was formed to assume responsibility for IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management functions. The head of the ICANN Multi-language Domain Name Committee delivered a report of "Suggestions on Multi-languages Development Policy" to the Board and gained full approval of the Board. This resolution means ICANN will introduce multi-language domain names into the present domain name system and establish top level domain names, including geographic, language, cultural and racial domain names in multi-languages.

As the preset domain system was set up by American scientists, English-speaking countries get most of the advantages and interests. For a long time, non-English speaking countries have made continuous efforts in developing domain names in their own languages, but were cold-shouldered. With fast development of the Internet, non-English speaking countries, such as South Korea, Japan, and China, gradually became important countries in Internet popularization and usage. Hence, it's natural for the international domain name system to make changes to meet this new situation.

In China, by June 30, 2002, the number of computers connected to the Internet exceeded 16.13 million and Internet users reached 45.80 million, according to the Tenth Survey Report on Internet Development in China by CNNIC.

The survey also revealed the increasing trend of Internet users in China based on the former ten half-yearly CNNIC national reports on Internet development, the number of Internet users in China reached its current apex in January 2000 and then declined. But an upturn trend re-appeared since January 2002. Research people from CNNIC said that the slowing increase of Internet users could be partly explained by the huge base of Chinese netizens. But the present upturn could indicate another golden time for Chinese Internet development is approaching. Meanwhile, the rather low level of Internet application rate in this country and China's 45.80 million Internet users representing only 3.6 percent of the total population, leaves huge space for further development.

(china.org.cn, August 10, 2002)