Internationalized Domain Names

I have a few basic questions

[bhartzer]

I've heard that Internationalized Domain Names are starting to become a hot topic and I thought I'd see if anyone here could help explain them to me. For instance,

When can I start registering an Internationalized Domain Name with a registrar? Or has it already begun?

Do all registrars participate or do I need to go to one that is "qualified" to participate in the program.

When I go to an Internationalized Domain Name in the web browser do I need to have a keywboard to access the site?

I understand that Internationalized Domain Names have two "names" (one that contains the special characters such as accents and one that doesn't. If I register the version that doesn't does that automatically give me the internationalized version of it?

Can someone in country A register an Internationalized Domain Name in, for example, country B? In other words, can I be in the USA and register an Internationalized Domain Name that's hosted on a server in the USA?

[bill]

Are you talking about ccTLD? Each country code is administered with different rules. Some countries require a local presence or proof of citizenship, while others waive these requirements and open registration to everybody. I guess it depends on which countries you are referring to.

Hosting location is rarely a requirement for domain registration. I host domains from several countries on servers in the US.

[bhartzer]

Thanks for replying, Bill. I understand the CCTlDs and how they're handled.

What I'm more interested in is IDNs, the domain names that you can register that contain international characters, characters not used the English language such as the letter a with an accent on it.

I was mainly referring to this [icann.org].

[bill]

Sorry. Must have been a Friday when I responded to that. ;)

They've been selling IDNs, or local language domains, for a few years now. There are still some issues about how these names resolve. The most popular method seems to be a browser plug-in to get the URLs to show up.

In Japan they've been selling these names for a while now, but I hardly see them used anywhere except on the registrar's sites. I simply don't see these names being used in the mainstream yet.

I don't know what the qualifications are for registrars, but the ones who sell IDNs all seem to advertise the fact. Not all registrars are setup to handle this.

In order to access these domains you'll need to be able to enter the name in the native language yourself. Usually you can just use an IME (on Windows machines) to input the language. Then the browser will have to support IDNs or have the right plug-in.

I'd assume that if you bought the ASCII equivalent of the IDN you'd also have the native name equivalent, but this may have more to do with how the name is generated in the first place. Not sure of this one.

I've never heard of hosting restrictions on an IDN, so you're probably safe there.

[tedster]

The buzz is that the new release of Internet Explorer (IE7) will recognize IDN's by default - no plug-in required. If that proves to be true, things will definitely shift.

[bhartzer]

Thanks Bill and Tedster, that's exactly the information I need to get started researching all of this.

I'm going to see if I can find anything out about IE7 and whether IDNs will be supported--and I'll report back if I hear anything new.