If control characters are permited, they will create a forged address that dislays as a valid address. You will end up doing your banking at a forged site and not know it.

I just hope that if newer versions of browsers even support this new URL standard that they provide options to categorically block them from being typed or traversed. This is a security hazard I don't want to have to deal with.

I have no idea how to feel about this. It means less compliance to nice simple 8-bit ASCII, that's for sure. Perhaps it will be easier to tell when a URL is not an English speaking website, thus letting English-only speakers know to avoid it before they click on it.

We're letting the darkies on the internet!? What's next, letting non-violent drug offenders out of jail? Actual health care reform in the U.S.? Or even something as crazy as true campaign finance reform.

Troubling times indeed.

Kob gives a scenerio where a Punycode (ie: xn--) URL is sent to someone who does not have the correct fonts to display the decrypted Unicode in the location bar. In that case the location will be displayed as the Punycode String and the site will still display. Also if your aunt can read Japanese, why does she not have the fonts installed? If she can not read Japanese, the pictures will still display even if the descriptions in Japanese does not display.

Kob, you are a moron.

It is not enough to have the DNS servers of the world process the foreign charset - all the anti-virus, firewalls, filters, client FTP software and older email systems will need to be upgraded. This "internationalization" change appears to be one more way by registrars and ICANN to make more money by having all the companies who have some brand name go out to "protect" their brand and register their domain name in another 100 languages.

Also, assume you have your domain name in Japanese for your family pictures, and you email the URL to your aunt in the US, who has only a US Windows without oriental fonts (and naturally a US Keyboard). The URL will appear as garbage on her screen, and you can not translate it to English for her to type it in. Mayhem.

InJapan: Now also the TLD (e.g. .com, .net) can be assigned in non-Latin character set.

This was reported on BBC World news even at 3AM on the reporting day.

The Inquirer has really lost its way - has no "news" to tell us and is now oft criticised for its inaccurate and late efforts to fill black on white space.

Time to have a morals check and read the Rogister albeit against my friendship with past owner of this now disheveled portal.

How is this different from the International Domain Names that have been around for years now?

The existing system is implemented within browsers where non-Latin domain names are translated into a string of Latin characters. Example: アニメ.com becomes xn--cck5dwc.com