The first conference on Arabising Internet domain names on Sunday marked the creation of the Arab niche on the worldwide web.
Around 500 participants attended the conference that was held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Amman.
The conference’s main objective is to facilitate Internet access to non-English speakers in the Arab world; which according to Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, the chairman of Talal Abu-Ghazaleh International (TAGI), are estimated to be around 90 per cent of Arab citizens.
The Arabisation of domain names on the Internet will also help promote Arab culture and inter-Arab e-business.
“[This initiative] will facilitate the direct use of Arabic language on the Internet without linguistic difficulties for those who speak Arabic,” said Mohammad Asfour, chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC Jordan).
Furthermore, added Asfour, it will help the business community keep pace with the current age of information technology through reaching required sites on the Internet using their own language.
“In addition to consolidating dealings in Arabic language as one of the main languages in the world, Arabising the domain names will positively affect investment and trade activity, technology transfer, financial and banking services and information and communication technology,” explained Asfour.
However, Minister of Telecommunications and Post, Fawwaz Zu’bi, urged experts to address some of the challenges facing the idea of Arabising the domain names in the internet.
According to Zu’bi, some of the potential challenges are conflicts in domain name registration between competing registrants, and the challenges of the language itself since acronyms widely used in the Internet may not be easily mapped to the Arab language.
Ala Abu Samaha, a professor at Amman Private University, said Arabising domain names on the Internet is somehow limiting,” since only Arabic speakers are able to use them.
“Arabic speakers form a minority of Internet users, if we wish to spread our culture and ideas, it has to be done in English,” he said, adding that providing users with language options - for example, sites in both English and Arabic - is the best solution.
Participants included representatives from several Arab countries, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Multilingual Internet Names Consortium (MINC) and Verisign CR5.
On Saturday,the Arabic Internet Names Consortium (AINC) was officially founded by leading 52 information technology experts, said Christine Arida, the elected chairperson of the AINC.
The government is willing to extend full support to the initiative through the building of a modern infrastructure and proper education, said Zu’bi while concluding that “the event is proof of a changing Arab attitude to getting back in the lead of the knowledge race.”