December 23, 2009

The Kremlin (the government of Russia) is pushing for internet domain names in Russia to be written in Cyrillic. They view the Internet as being Western-dominated, especially the United States, and they don't like how web addresses have to be written in Latin letters. Previously, there was a ban on using non-Latin alphabets for web addresses. Thus, The Kremlin's website had to be written as kremlin.ru, which is in English. The .ru is english as well. In Cyrillic, the suffix will be .рф, which stands for Russian Federation.

The spread of the internet from the West to the rest of the world has created a "hybrid web", in which countries with non-Latin alphabets type the domain and e-mail addresses in Latin letters and the content in native ones. This October the use of non-Latin domains was approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or Icann [what a funny organization. You learn something new every day], which is based in the United States. They said that more than half of the world's 1.6 billion internet users speak a native language that does not have a Latin alphabet. Russian president Dmitri Medvedev said the new Cyrillic domains would make the internet more accessible to Russians. It would open up the internet to those who are unfamiliar with Latin characters or are intimidated by them. Currently, internet usage in Russia is mostly confined to large cities, and some feel that Cyrillic domains would help internet usage grow in the provinces. The Cyrillic domains are likely to be activated next year.

However, there are some Russians wary of this move. Some worry that this would cut Russia off from the world. "Cut off for decades under Communism, Russians revel in the Internet's ability to connect them to the world, and they prize the freedom of the Web even as the government has tightened control over major television channels. But now, computer users are worried that Cyrillic domains will give rise to a hermetic Russian web, a sort of cyberghetto." For example, one of the busiest blogging sites in Russia is Livejournal, and they said they would not employ Cyrillic domains. Many Russians do not want to embrace another system.

Another concern is that this will lead to censorship and a restriction of access. The fear is that with Russian domains the government can control what websites are accessible. However, the director of the agency that coordinates Cyrillic domains said that the fear of censorship is unfounded. He said if the Russian government wanted to, it could censor .ru domains [uh, is that supposed to be reassuring?!], but they haven't and they will not do so with the new ones.

Others are hesitant about the Cyrillic domains because it's an inconvenience. Holders of .ru sites will have to decide if they want to establish companion sites with Cyrillic addresses and the Cyrillic suffix. Some worry that people from other countries (including clients) would not be able to access their websites since most keyboards around the world have Latin symbols. It would be difficult for those people to reach Cyrillic websites. (Full Story)

The article said "The .ru suffix will remain when Russia rolls out its Cyrillic suffix", but it is unclear from the article whether Russia will continue to have .ru sites alongside Cyrillic sites, or if they will eventually require all sites to be in Cyrillic. It will be interesting to see what develops.