• BBC, Thursday, May 6, 2010 2:28 PM

On Thursday, Net regulator Icann switched on a system that allows full web addresses that contain no Latin characters, reports The BBC. Calling the move "historic," Arab nations including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are the first countries to have so-called "country codes" written in Arabic scripts. "The move is the first step to allow web addresses in many scripts including Chinese, Thai and Tamil," according to The BBC. Icann representative Kim Davies said there had previously been concerns that such a move could cause the Internet to "split," but that such worries were not credible.

More than 20 countries have so far requested approval for international domains from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a.k.a., Icann. Previously, websites were able to use some non-Latin letters, but the country codes such as .eg for Egypt had to be written in Latin script. Website owners in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will now be able to apply for web addresses using the new country codes.

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