The internet could be on the verge of one of the most fundamental changes in its make-up since it was first established.

As this piece was written discussions were being finalized on the introduction of non-Latin characters into web addresses. The addition of domain names in Asian, Arabic or other scripts would vastly multiply the number of options available, and allow their owners to target their audiences more effectively.

If approval was forthcoming at the end of October 2009, the proposal could have a ‘dam burst’ effect, with the first new domain names possibly in use by mid-2010.

President of the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Rod Beckstrom, said at the opening of its conference in South Korea: “Of the 1.6 billion internet users today worldwide, more than half use languages that have scripts that are not Latin-based.

“So this change is very much necessary as the internet continues to spread.”

The man in charge of the group which has been formulating the change, Peter Dengate Thrush, said work on this “fantastically complicated technical feature” had been ongoing for some years.

But he added: “We are confident that it works…we’re ready to start rolling it out.”

The BBC reported that the changes will be implemented across the internet’s Domain Name System. This translates domain names into a series of numbers – IP addresses – which can be recognised by all computers configured for Latin languages. A method of translating non-Latin characters into the same format is at the heart of this next big step.

Unofficial translators are already in use in some countries, such as China and Thailand, but the introduction of an internationally-recognised system would ensure that all computers could ‘understand’ those translations.

After more than 10 years as the internet’s main overseer, Icann was finally made autonomous from the United States government in October 2009, and is now a global entity, into which all countries are free to have an input.