(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — The nonprofit responsible for the assignment of domain names and IP addresses has signed an agreement with the organization that manages the .SG country code top level domain, Singapore Network Information Centre (www.sgnic.sg), which has just released its schedule for rolling out non-Latin TLDs.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (www.icann.org) announced on Tuesday that SGNIC had agreed to an accountability framework program, which states the obligations of a ccTLD manager and ICANN, as well as the dispute resolution and termination procedure. SGNIC will be honoring this commitment as it introduces Chinese script TLDs to the island nation, where Chinese form the ethnic majority.
ICANN dropped a bombshell last week when it announced that it would allow Internet addresses containing non-Latin characters from start to finish. Along with Chinese, more than 20 languages such as Indian, Arabic and Japanese will be valid for domain names.
SGNIC’s launch of Chinese domain names will take place in four phases. The first is government applications starting November 23 2009 and ending Dec 31, 2009. Phase two will last between January 7 and February 18, 2010, when trademark owners can apply for their domain. After that, there will be a sunrise period from March 25 to May 6, 2010, where domains will carry a premium and other restrictions before the general launch on June 10, 2010.
While Chinese characters will only be apparent at the second and third level of the domain (and end in .sg, .com.sg, or another variation), resulting domain holders will be given both a simplified and a traditional version of the domain.
As of May 2009, there were nearly 108,000 reported .SG domains registered.
