Registration of double-byte domain names using Japanese characters (hiragana, katakana or kanji) and ending with .com, .net, and .org will be made available through a dedicated registration website at www.onamae.com
This announcement effectively positions interQ Inc. as the first ICANN-accredited registrar in Japan to take up the service jointly promoted by i-DNS.net and VeriSign-Global Registry Services (formerly known as NSI Registry), and reinforces the announcement of intent made in May this year.
"i-DNS believes that this technology has the potential impact to propel companies to the forefront of the international e-commerce arena. Japan is one of the key markets for i-DNS, and our partnership with interQ underscores our strategy to work with local market leaders to bring this service to the masses," said Michael Ng, CEO of i-DNS.net. "Japanese companies can now look forward to using familiar names, brands, trademarks and serial marks in local characters ending with the famous top level domain (TLDs) of .com, .org and .net."
"The availability of Japanese domain names augments our English "onamae.com" service and is consistent with interQ's corporate goal of providing an 'Internet for everybody'," said Masatoshi Kumagai, President of interQ Inc. "It makes Internet surfing an intuitive process and will definitely help users access the information and services they seek easily."
Backed by US-based General Atlantic Partners LLC,i-DNS.net has pioneered a full suite of solutions designed to create a multilingual Internet accessible to everyone, everywhere. Its Unicode-based i-DNS technology currently supports more than 59 languages, including Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Hebrew, Russian and Thai.
i-DNS.net also partners with global industry players like VeriSign Global Registry Services (the exclusive registry for .com, .net and .org TLD names worldwide), Melbourne IT (a leading supplier of domain names and eCommerce infrastructure services), Register,com Inc. (a leading domain name registrar), eNIC Corporation and dotTV Corporation (both international ccTLD administrators), to promote and deploy its multilingual domain name technology globally.
About InterQ Corporation
Since beginning service as an Internet service provider in 1995, interQ Inc. has developed three main services with their non-member program "interQ ORIGINAL", member program "interQ MEMBERS", and corporate program "interQ OFFICE". In 1999, interQ Inc. became the first independent ISP to have publicly traded over-the-counter stock. While becoming the first official registrar in Asia to register domain names with the "onamae.com" service, interQ also concentrated on the potential of email advertising by establishing three advertisement distribution companies: magclick for mail magazines, clickmail for mail between individuals, and FreeML.com for mailing lists. InterQ Inc. is developing into a business specializing in providing service for the Internet with the aim of becoming an Internet media group.
For more information, please visit http://www.interq.ad.jp
