The Israeli Internet Association officially announced today (Wednesday) the opening date of the registration for the new “.Israel” domain name space, which will take place this coming Tuesday. This, when the new name space will operate in addition to the existing “.il” suffix, and in addition to domain names designated for government, IDF, municipal authorities and academic websites.
The Israeli Internet Association was able to register the new extension with the ICANN organization, the global organization responsible for determining the domains for websites, and to put up for public discussion the new method of registering the names, as much as possible from now on, to choose an Israeli address. Meanwhile, the registration will become active from this Tuesday at 12:00, on a first-come, first-served basis. The Internet Association granted early registration to 150 association bodies.
The CEO of the Israel Internet Association, Yoram HaCohen, said: “Starting next week, all citizens of Israel will be able to register their websites in full Hebrew. This is a significant step and a natural progression of the Israeli Internet community. The step has symbolic but also practical consequences. This will help many businesses sharpen the affinity of Israelis to them, alongside increasing linguistic diversity on the Internet and making use accessible to populations where the English language is not common. We intend to examine the progress of the new space and depending on its success we will examine the establishment of a national domain name space in Arabic as well.”