Internationalized domain names allow web users who do not write with the Roman alphabet to type web addresses completely in their native scripts without alternating between native and Roman alphabet keyboards. Internet users in countries such as China, Russia and Arab-speaking nations had to use two keyboards to type web addresses. They had to use one keyboard for their native scripts along with the Roman alphabet keyboard just to be able to type web addresses and gain access to a web site, as only a part of web addresses was localized then. This proved a very lengthy process.

Users had to alternate between keyboards because only secondary-level domain names were converted into native scripts, while top-level domain names remained in the Roman alphabet. A secondary-level domain name is the name that lies between the first and final dot in a web address; a top-level domain name is the “com” or “edu” in a web address.

Using this two keyboard system to type web addresses followed a July 2003 decision by the Verisign-sponsored Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to make internet access more efficient for web users who do not use the Roman alphabet. To do this, the IETF developed an algorithm called punycode to convert native scripts or diacritics into a string of Roman/ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) characters that the computer processes and displays as native scripts in a web address.

Languages such as French, German, Portuguese, Swedish and Spanish signed up for internationalized domain names under this partial localization scheme. By 2004, languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Greek and Russian also signed for partial localization of web addresses.

However, things took a turn for the better for non-English speaking web users in November 2007. In November 2007, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) tested 11 languages: Japanese, Yiddish, Russian, Tamil, Simplified Chinese, Persian, Arabic, Greek, Chinese Traditional, Koran and Hindi with the total localization of web addresses. This move would eliminate the need for non-English speaking web users to alternate between native and Roman character keyboards.

The idea of internationalized domain names came about as early as 1996 when it was first proposed by M. Duerst and later implemented in theory by T. W. Tan et al in 1998. But what really catalyzed the movement towards localization of web addresses was the outcry from non-English speaking countries.

Though the movement was catalyzed by ICANN's need to meet the requirements of non-English speaking nations, the introduction of internationalized domain names was not without its hitches. Internet bureaucratic red tape and many competing proposals on how to proceed with internationalized domain names made its initial implementation in July 2003 a lengthy process.

Consequently, some Arab-speaking nations, South Korea and the speakers of the various Chinese dialects, while fearing the red tape surrounding the initial launch of internationalized domain names would not end, developed internationalized domain names independent of ICANN in 2003 to meet the needs of their local customers.

But while internationalized domain names are a truly great thing for non- English speaking countries, the introduction of internationalized domain names has been problematic for various customers. Internationalized domain names have been used in phishing scams to steal financial and personal information.