The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) of the UAE has dedicated the currently-commenced phase two of the launch of Arabic top level domain dotEmarat to trademarks, while phase one was dedicated to governmental entities.

Mohamed Nasser Al Ghanim, TRA director general, explained the traits of dotEmarat and the launching stages it has undergone at a press conference at the ongoing Gitex 2010 in Dubai.

“The Arabic top-level domain (dotEmarat) presents a unique opportunity for companies looking to expand its customer base. Ownership of such domains will secure intellectual property rights related to the name and opens vast opportunities for more companies to take advantage of the Arabic names for their brands,” said Al Ghanim.

“The volume of Arabic content on the Internet is huge, but inability to write domain addresses in Arabic alphabets constituted a barrier for a large segment of Arab users. This was the main driver that sparked the adoption of the idea to present Arabic top-level do-main names,” he added.

Al Ghanim demonstrated the benefits of launching dotEmarat on culture and language heritage to form a supporting pillar for the Arabic language across the internet. It also breaks barriers encountered by internet users that only speak Arabic.

The largest share (about 30 per cent) of Internet users speak English, followed by Chinese (20 per cent) and Spanish (8 per cent), while the share of the Arabic content reaches 3 per cent only.

DotEmarat forms a crucial ability to interlink with a new segment of users, Al Ghanim said.

This connection embodies a bridge that leads this new division to understand and utilize the internet services. It is considered a remarkable asset for trademarks willing to interact in Arabic.

Also, dotEmarat can be used in commercial campaigns targeting the Arabic user, especially since the new Arabic top-level domain name is  currently a broad market incorporating an assortment of unique names that fits the activities offered by every company, unlike the cliché top-level domain names where obtaining a new name has become close to impossible.

The TRA-UAE has obtained the approval of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) thus becoming among the first countries of the world to launch an Arabic top-level domain name. – TradeArabia News Service