198 government agencies sign on to 'dotEmarat'

February, 05th 2011

Dubai: So far, 198 UAE government and semi-government entities have registered under the Arabic form of ‘dotEmarat' domain name with the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), officials said.

At a Gitex Technology Week exhibition yesterday, TRA director-general Nasser Al Ganem said that there is a huge amount of Arabic content on the web, but the inability to write domain addresses in Arabic limits users. The launch of the domain name in Arabic seeks to remove this barrier.

"The future aspirations that await us from dotEmarat are abundant in diverse aspects.

"It contributes to strengthening the positioning of the Arabic language on the internet in parallel to its language heritage and Arabic content support," Al Ganem said.

The share of Arabic content on the internet is only 3 per cent, according to statistics from TRA.

"The Arabic top-level domain presents a unique opportunity for companies looking to expand its customer base. Ownership of such domains will secure intellectual property rights related to the name and opens vast opportunities for more companies to [take] advantage of the Arabic names for their brands," he said.

The authority is now receiving applications from registered trademarks until December, in what is called the Sunrise period in the campaign that promotes national identity and a stronger bond between the Arab nations.

Trademark

Mohammad Gheyath, executive director of technology development affairs, said that the launch of the Sunrise phase on Monday has already seen 13 applicants from the commercial sector.

The process to register a trademark involves illustrating domain ownership, to avoid legal cases.

"Arabic domain names behave differently from those in English. But we expect to have more applications after Gitex," he said.

Al Ganem said the potential for registered trademark applications is high because the companies would like to preserve their names and intellectual property rights in the Arabic domain name.

Source: gulfnews.com