As the countdown to the introduction of generic domain names continues, the number of country code web address suffixes is continuing to increase.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has completed a string evaluation on a proposed Kazakhstan country code.
As a consequence, individuals and businesses operating in the oil-rich former Soviet state should soon be able to register domain names in non-Latin script.
This should help increase internet adoption rates in Kazakhstan, where Kazakh Cyrillic – rather than Latin text – is predominantly used.
The Internationalized Domain Name ccTLD Fast Track Process was approved by the ICANN board at its annual meeting in Seoul, South Korea, in October 2009.
Up until this point, all domain names were required to be registered using Latin alphabet characters, as had been the case since the creation of the world wide web.
Since 2009, 28 different countries and territories have successfully passed through the string evaluation phase.