New Arabic IDN dotEmarat Released

This week saw the launch of a new Arabic top-level domain name dotEmarat (.امارات). Like the .рф (.rf) domain for Russia, the domain is in the Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) format. This means that the domain term and the extension itself are in Arabic characters.

The idea behind these new generation of IDN domains is to open the internet to the global non-English audience. Using IDN domains means these users to not need to understand English or use a latin-character keyboard.

H.E. Mohamed Nasser Al Ghanim, TRA Director General, commented on launching of the Sun-rise Period stating that: “The Arabic top-level domain (dotEmarat) presents a unique opportunity for companies looking to expand its customer base. Ownership of such domains will secure intel-lectual property rights related to the name and opens vast opportunities for more companies to take advantage of the Arabic names for their brands.

Al Ghanim added: “The volume of Arabic content on the Internet is huge, but inability to write domain addresses in Arabic alphabets constituted a barrier for a large segment of Arab users. This was the main driver that sparked the adoption of the idea to present Arabic top-level domain names.”

It is estimated that 3% of the global internet audience speak Arabic, with 30% speaking English, 20% Chinese and 8% Spanish. It is hoped that dotEmarat (.امارات) helps break down language barriers and works to increase this marketshare.