Several years ago I asked a friend in Brazil for his e-mail address. He told me he had a new one with his surname in the username. His surname was "Gonçalves." I pointed to the letter "ç" he had written down and said, "Of course that will be a regular "c." At first he disagreed, saying he'd signed up with the correct letter in his name (the pronunciation changes significantly without the "ç" included correctly) and then conceded that yes, probably the non-modified "c" was what would be expected. Now that may be changing.
Although I have no idea if or how e-mail addresses may be impacted, ICANN, the now-private organization that coordinates domain names, has announced that starting in 2010 domain names will be made available in characters other than the 26 English/Roman characters. This is truly good news for businesses, schools, governments, non-profits, individuals and others who want their sites to be made truly local.
The video above explains more about it (I found the music a bit too dramatic). This is good news for the Internet. It's about time it became truly international.
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