China Internet Network Information Center has officially submitted the pure Chinese top-level domain "dotZhongguo" to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers for international approval.
It is expected that early next year, netizens around the world will be able to visit the Internet using pure Chinese domain names ended with a Chinese period followed by the Chinese word for China, "Zhongguo".
Qi Lin, director assistant for CNNIC, told local media that by the end of June 2009, the number of Chinese netizens reached 338 million. For these people, the launch of the pure Chinese domain names will not bring inconvenience. They can still use the English ones in accordance with their own language habits. However, they can also use the Chinese domain names directly. At present, mainstream browsers, including Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Chrome, Firefox, Netscape, Safari, and Opera, all directly support the Chinese domain names.
In addition, once the pure Chinese domain is approved, the Chinese mark for a period will be equally effective as "." when entering website addresses on browsers and no input switch is needed. In the future, Chinese traditional characters will also be available.