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.

The first 10 addresses registered Thursday were for nondescript, common nouns: работа.рф (work); видео.рф (video); автозапчасти.рф (auto parts); магазин.рф (store); бизнес.рф (business); игры.рф (games); телефон.рф (telephone); золото.рф (gold); квартира.рф (apartment); сайт.рф (site).

President Dmitry Medvedev, an avid Internet user, had lobbied global Internet oversight body ICAAN to introduce the Cyrillic names. In September 2008, he told an Internet conference that it would have “symbolic significance” for the Russian language.

The launch of the first IDN (Internationalized Domain Name) in Russia has not been without its own controversy. Russia has declined to close down the old .SU domain extension, despite several requests from ICANN. In fact sales of .SU have been encouraged in that time, with a new IDN form released.

The launch of .RF now means that Russia has three extensions, far more than any other country. RU is the best selling, with 3m registered addresses but .РФ (.RF) will open up a whole new market for them. Many Russian words and sounds can not be accurately represented with Latin characters.

The most popular letters in the addresses registered in the first hour were ы and я — Cyrillic characters with no equivalent in the Roman script, the center said on its web site.

Kolesnikov said the domains would allow Russian-speaking Internet users to feel at home on the web.

“The letter ё is what we were deprived of all these years using the English-language Internet,” he said. The character, pronounced “yo,” is often printed as a standard “e” in Cyrillic texts.

Most importantly Russian users will not have to change their keyboard language when surfing to an IDN .РФ (.RF) domain. As Internet internationalization and localization increases, that may give these new IDN domains a key advantage.

Click for more information or to register an .РФ (.RF) domain name.

Until the 30th November, you can register .IN domains with a 75% discount. Any company with global ambitions would do well to take notice of this offer.

All you have to do is register a new EU domain name between the 25th November and 25th December. You then enter your details at www.winwith.eu

Win an iPod Touch With EU Domain Registrations. Our Christmas competition runs from 25 November to 25 December 2010. During this time EURid will regularly select competition winners, on 2, 10, 18 and 26 December. During each selection 25 winners will be announced. Each winner will receive one 8GB iPod Touch personalised with the .eu logo.

Any iPods left over from the Win With .eu Christmas competition (because their winners could not be contacted) will be given away during a final selection on 26 January 2011.

Also any EU domain registered between 25th November and 25th December 2010 stand a chance to win one of 100 iPod Touch devices.

In Spanish ‘es’ means ‘is’, so other word combinations can be created on that basis.

Through our partnership with a domestic supplier we can now meet the strict new regulations put in place by the Chinese Registry. This will require original documentation to be lodged in China by our partner so the price has been increased. However this will ensure your CN domains are correctly registered.

Please be aware that some companis are offering Chinese (CN) registration without following the new proceedures and regulations. This leaves their domains vulnerable to being suspended by Chinese officials at a later point.

We will need the following documentation from applicants.

• ID of Management Contact Person
• ID of Technical Contact Person
• ID of Payment Contact Person
• ID of Proposer

These can all be the same person – a suitable ID would be passport, driving licence or personal ID card.

• Main contact phone number
• Main contact email address
• Business name
• Business address
• Registered company number (for juristiction of your company)

We do not require a Chinese Company Number, although we are glad to make registrations with these details if you have them. Companies without a Chinese Company Number and address will be given a custodial registration through our partner. We will provide you with a document of ownership and once the legislation is relaxed again, the domain details will be updated.

The ID documents can either be sent as photocopies, or more conveniently, scanned in and emailed through to us. If you have any questions please contact us for assistance.

Click to Register Chinese CN Domains

It was suggested that unconfirmed domains could be prevented from delegating. Downtime is unacceptable so this situation was taken very seriously by us.

Now it seems the scale of this task has dawned on the Russian Registry and they have decided not to affect the service on unconfirmed domains. This is great news and means we can confirm that even if you have not got your documentation to us, there is no risk your domain will stop working.

However we will continue to get all our RU/SU clients confirmed within the Registry system as there are some limitations on unconfirmed domains. At present they can not change ownership details or registrar agent. Therefore it is important to get your domains to a confirmed status.

We thank all our customers who have already sent us their documents. This is a sizable administration task but we are committed to helping you meet Registry guidelines. As usual we will keep all our clients informed of any changes to the situation or you may contact us for more information.

All our customers who have registered RU or SU domain extensions must provide us with the following documentation.

Personal Registrations

We need you to fax or email us a scan of your passport. The passport name has to match the owner name on your domain.

Company Registrations

We need you to fax or email us a scan of your company incorporation document. The company name on this document should match the company name on the domain WHOIS.

The deadline for providing this information to us is the end of April. We are in the process of emailing all the affected customers directly. If you have any problems fufilling this request please get in touch with our support staff by opening a ticket.