Over the past several years, ICANN has been working hard at creating a script that translates non-latin based characters from domain names, opening up over half of the world’s 1.6 billion internet population to domain name support in their native alphabets. This change is necessary and major, allowing users to access domains that have non-latin based characters in them. This will open up a huge market for foreign domains, and I imagine the landrush to snatch them will be unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. Domain name applications for non-latin domains could be accepted as early as mid 2010.

“This is the biggest change technically to the Internet since it was invented 40 years ago,” Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of the ICANN board, told reporters, calling it a “fantastically complicated technical feature.” He said he expects the board to grant approval on Friday, the conference’s final day.

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