Since midnight GMT, .com, .net and .org extensions have been added to domain names written in Chinese, Japanese and Korean script. In only a few hours, one Canadian registrar has reported 16,000 registrations. Previously, domain names attached to the three global top level domains could only be in Roman letters or numbers.

The liberalisation of domain naming, which is expected to boost Asian internet use, was made possible by VeriSign Global Registry Services which controls the database used by domain name registrars for .com, .net and .org name registrations. Arabic and other languages could follow. VeriSign authorised over 20 companies to take orders for the Asian domain names and submit them to its database.

The most popular names registered so far have been generic words. The move increases the number of available characters in a domain name from 37 to 40,282. Users of Western keyboards will need to add foreign character sets if they want to enter the addresses in their internet browsers.

Critics have said that the move by VeriSign, which is still officially a test, is premature and incompatible with present internet standards. They argue that web servers are not prepared for the new characters so will not be able to direct users to the new domain names.

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