Non-English speakers will soon be able to have web addresses in their own language after net regulator ICANN invited countries to apply for so-called "internationalised domain names" using non- Latin characters such as Japanese kanji or Arabic script.

The regulator has described the introduction of IDNs as the biggest change to the net since it was invented 40 years ago and believe it will open up the worldwide web even further to millions of potential users.

President of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Rod Beckstrom said: "More than half the internet users around the world don't use a Latin-based script as their native language, so this makes the internet more global and accessible for everyone.

"The program will encompass close to one hundred thousand characters, opening up the internet to billions of potential users around the globe."

Egypt's communications minister has already said that it will open the world's first Arabic language domain using the name .masr written in the Arabic alphabet. It translates as 'Egypt'.

ICANN has said that people will be able to apply for an entire web address at a later date through the body, which wins the right to control a nation's internationalised country-code.

But not everyone is hailing it as the ground-breaking development that ICANN claim it to be. Mick Fealty, editor of the Slugger O'Toole website, said: "Sometimes things like this don't work as well as the inventors want them to. You would expect it to take off but people have got used to using the Latin script so may not see any reason to do otherwise.

"You have the ever popular .com or .org addresses that people are used to and then you've got other domain names that haven't taken off at all, like .coop, and it could be the case with these new addresses as well."

Dr Kevin Curran, a senior lecturer in computer science at the University of Ulster, said it does not deserve to be called the biggest change in online history.

He said: "Half of the world don't use the Latin alphabet but a lot of individuals in various countries worked around this by using third party software to translate web-address into their native languages and these simply needed standardised and regulated.

"But caution should be exercised as there is a danger that people will be able to spoof internet addresses and get redirected to the wrong site. However, if countries such as Russia or China are going to use their own script, then they will require their own keyboards. It is not the case that one size fits all."

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