It was reported on Monday by the Associated Press that ICANN, the Internet’s key oversight agency, is on track to start testing addresses by November which are spelled entirely in foreign characters. It is thought however that determining which ones to allow will likely take another year or two according to the report.

Currently, addresses partly written in foreign languages are sometimes possible, but the suffix which is the “.com” part of an address still requires non-English speakers to type English characters.

"The "live" tests later this year are designed to make sure browsers, e-mail programs and other applications will work well with the foreign characters." Said Vint Cerf, chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

"We’ve already done the testing in the laboratories," Cerf said, as ICANN’s general meetings ended Friday in San Juan, Puerto Rico. "We’re confident that none of the infrastructure is likely to encounter a problem but you really don’t know until you are in the live environment." Engineers are planning to feed the Internet’s domain name directories with nonsensical strings that can be removed quickly should trouble arise.

On the assumption that all tests run smoothly, there is work remaining to be done on developing policies on such names. For example, officials have to resolve whether the operators of China’s ".cn" should automatically be entitled to the Chinese version of their domains and what happens in the event that a competing organization or a private company want to claim it.

Cerf indicated that "I would be doubtful that anything is likely to happen until the first quarter or first half of 2008," Furthermore ICANN’s chief executive Paul Twomey, said full-blown rules are expected to take between 18 months to two years to develop, although interim policies can be in place sooner.

Twomey also stated that they are looking to approve additional English Domain Name suffixes in time for mid-2008, so long as they meet their target of finalizing approval procedures by early next year.

Since extensions added since 2000 have been limited to specific regions or industries The new names would represent the first expansion for general use since this date.