Good news from Singapore Network Information Centre (SGNIC):
Businesses and consumers can now look forward to using full Chinese and full Tamil characters in their website addresses to better reach their customers and friends. The Singapore Network Information Centre (SGNIC), the national registry for domain names, will be accepting registrations for Internationalised Domain Names (IDN) from 4 July 2011 onwards.
This offers greater choice to consumers as they can soon register for Web addresses that their target market or audience can better identify with, such as Chinese and Tamil-speaking communities in China and India who are also starting to use full Chinese and Tamil characters in website addresses. SGNIC will offer these IDNs under the top-levels of 
and 
. Examples of such names include and 
.
SGNIC General Manager Lim Choon Sai said, “SGNIC hopes to give users greater choices and add to the range of domain names available here. We believe this is timely given the growing interest, especially among businesses both here and overseas, to reach the emerging Indian and Chinese overseas markets, which may feel more comfortable using their own language characters. Brand owners can also build up and strengthen their online identities further with this new service.”
The launch of IDN comes after SGNIC released Chinese Domain Names at the 2nd and 3rd level in 20092 and follows the global trend of using non-Latin characters in domain names. Some countries/regions which have implemented full IDNs include Russia, the Republic of Korea and Saudi Arabia.
Registrations of IDNs in Singapore will be phased according to the Schedule below. The categories of applicants mentioned in the first two phases of the launch can also apply for registering premium names (single-character domain names and numeric domain names) if they have registered these premium names under existing .sg categories. New premium names can also be applied under Phase 2.
Registration phases:
Phase 1: For existing CDN holders (4 July – 15 August 2011)
Phase 2: For Trademark holders, government agencies and other interested businesses and individuals (12 September – 8 November 2011)
General Launch: 14 December 2011 onwards
For more information, please refer to www.sgnic.sg.
ISSUED BY THE SINGAPORE NETWORK INFORMATION CENTRE
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