Bulgaria receives ICANN approval for Cyrillic web suffix
Bulgaria’s Transport and Communications Ministry said on October 14 that the country has received the approval of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to implement the use of the Cyrillic-script web address suffix “.бг”.
ICANN’s approval comes nearly five years after Bulgaria formally applied for the country code top-level domain in November 2009 – although the first indications of Bulgaria’s intention to request the domain came in June 2008. ICANN repeatedly denied the request citing possible confusion with the Latin-script country-code domain used by Brasil, namely .br.
The use of Cyrillic script in domain names has been sanctioned for years, but all such websites in Bulgaria have had to use the Latin-script suffix .bg until now.
“The ability to spell out the website addresses entirely in the native script will aid the easier use of regional sources of information, which are primarily of importance to local consumers. Those who do not know the Latin script well will be able to manage their online work much easier,” Bulgaria’s caretaker Transport Minister Nikolina Angelkova said in a statement.
(Photo: Jakub Krechowicz/sxc.hu)
