Dengate Thrush Translates

New Zealander Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of the board at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), has been in charge of reviewing what is being touted as the “biggest change” to the internet “since it was invented 40 years ago”. The body said that it was finalising plans to introduce web addresses using non-Latin characters. The proposal — initially approved in 2008 – would allow domain names written in Asian, Arabic or other scripts. Plans for IDNs were approved at a meeting in June 2008. However, testing of the system has been going on for much longer, said Dengate Thrush. “You have to appreciate what a fantastically complicated technical feature this is,” he said. “What we have created is a different translation system.” ICANN is headquartered in Marina del Rey, California. Dengate Thrush was appointed as chairman in November 2007.