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The international organization that website names has allowed non-English for the first time. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has websites from three Arab to use Arabic in Internet URLs. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are the first countries in the world that can use their own in Internet addresses. ICANN says this is the first step in more scripts in web addresses. Next in for are Chinese, Tamil and Thai. The new system is part of a plan to make the Internet more . Until this new change, anyone making a website had to use English in the address, even if they didn’t understand the .

One of the first websites with an Arabic address is the Egyptian Ministry of Communications. Its Tarek Kamal told the Associated Press that the new system was a " in internet history". He added: "This great step will open up new for e-services in [Arabic]. It will the number of online users…and Internet services to [break into] new [markets] by eliminating language ." Website makers will be able to Arabic addresses that are read from right to left. Arabic only up one per cent of all the content on the Internet. However, Arabs make up five per cent of the world and Arab web surfers have by 2,000 per cent in the past ten years.