UAE introduces Arabic domain names

The United Arab Emirates will now allow Arabic domain names for websites, which was previously restricted to using only English characters.

The proposal was put across by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority as part of a national strategy to manage Arabic language on the internet. It was officially approved by the Ministerial Council for Services yesterday and will pave the way for future inclusions of UAE domain addresses in Arabic (Emarat).

Presently, most websites in the country use the ‘.ae’ English domain address, which is regulated by the TRA's .aeDA department that was established in 2007.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) extended top-level domain names in July last year, approving the introduction of Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) written in Arabic and Chinese scripts.

According to national news agency WAM, the decision to introduce Arabic domain names will “contribute to increasing the number of surfers to Arabic sites and further promote and strengthen the UAE's identity.”