If there is one question or concern related to IDNs that have been asked continuously in the past year it has to be that of internationalizing versus localizing the domain name space. In other words, questions such as:

“Well, but I don’t have a keyboard that enables me to type in all these new characters, so I cannot type in these IDN addresses, why are you allowing this to happen?”

“I don’t understand <insert any language> so IDNs will keep me from accessing and using the Internet like I used to, that is not a positive development, why are you doing this?”

The answers are really quite simple. Internationalizing the domain names is not done in order for all users across the world to be able to type in all domain names. It is done to ease local communication and accessibility. It is called “internationalization” (and not “localization”) because the Internet and the DNS is a function that needs to work on a global or international level. However, it is the individual user or business choice as to what characters (within the current standard and registry offerings) their domain name should contain.

(more…)