The National Information Technology Center (NITC) of Jordan announced the launch of the Kingdom’s Arabic top-level domain (TLD) at the recently concluded Mena ICT Forum 2010 in Amman.

“The face of the internet has been drastically changing as a result of international domain names (IDNs),” said Baher Esmat, the regional director of ICANN to the Middle East.

“It is now bringing communities closer to internet technologies as a result of more accessible international with familiar languages. Our launches of domains in other countries in the region such as Egypt and the UAE have proved highly successful, and Jordan will continue this momentum,” he added.

Dr Nabil Al-Fayoumi, NITC’s director general, said: “Jordan’s current Internet penetration rates currently run at 30 per cent, and with the introduction of (.alordon), we hope that these numbers will reach to an impressive 50 per cent by the beginning of 2012 since we will be reaching new audiences that have been hindered from using the Internet.”

“This new step for Jordan will be breaking language barriers and opening new opportunities for internet users,” he added.

“The decision to widen the language scope of the internet will have a landmark impact on how the Internet will be received not only in Jordan but around the world,” said Minister of Communications and Information Technology Marwan Juma.

“This comes at a critical time when expanding the language of the Internet is vital to its growth and reception to all users,” he concluded.

The efforts to launch the top-level domain came as a result of the need to develop a means to further encourage the use of the Internet and increase the dissemination of it to local communities.

Eighty per cent of Internet users do not know English - the prevailing language of the world and the Internet, while 80 per cent of Internet content is in English, a report said. – TradeArabia News Service