There is progress being reported in the Email Address Internationalization (EAI) world. EAI is also known as IMA, Internationalized Mail Address.
Read the latest posted by my colleague over at http://www.ChopChop.domains
According to a Wikipedia entry: “EAI enables users to have a localized [email] address in a native language script or character set, as well as an ASCII form for communicating with legacy systems or for script-independent use. Applications that recognize internationalized domain names and mail addresses must have facilities to convert these representations.
Significant demand for such addresses is expected in China, Japan, Russia, and other markets that have large user bases in a non-Latin-based writing system.”
My long-term favorable view on IDNs and in general being long on investment in this area remains.
PINKY BRAND 