ICANN Approves Bulgaria's National Domain .BG in Cyrillic

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved the national domain of Bulgaria, the Ministry of Transport and Communications said, Tuesday.

This means that soon it will be possible to buy Internet domains which will be written entirely in Cyrillic.

"Using the Cyrillic alphabet on the internet is a serious step towards the preservation of the Bulgarian language and the promotion of our cultural identity. The national domain in Cyrillic on the internet allows more people to use the World Wide Web for communication and work. Using our alphabet helps facilitate the use of regional sources of information that are important for the local users," caretaker minister Nikolina Angelkova said in a statement as cited by Dnevnik.bg. She noted that 400 million people worldwide use the Cyrillic alphabet on the internet, so there is a large enough audience for this type of sites.

Bulgaria is the first country to declare its desire to register its own domain in Cyrillic. In 2010, ICANN initially refused to register a .BG domain claiming that the Bulgarian proposal contains visual similarity with already existing domains in Latin. In December 2013 ICANN allowed for a final assessment of the Bulgarian proposal.

The ICANN will now apply for the .BG domain to be included in the system. A register of the names of the websites using the .BG domain is to be established. Representatives of Bulgaria's Transport and Communications Ministry will hold meetings with the business, NGOs and academic institutions to discuss the methodology used for the selection of an organization that will register the domain names in Cyrillic.

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