According to an announcement by ICANN, today, the first four domains from ICANN’s New Generic Top-Level Domains Program were cleared to proceed to delegation.

These first new gTLDs, or strings, are:

• شبكة (xn--ngbc5azd) – the Arabic word for “Web” or “Network”
  Registry : International Domain Registry Pty. Ltd.
• онлайн (xn--80asehdb) – Russian for “Online”
  Registry: Core Association
• сайт (xn--80aswg) – Russian for “Web site”
  Registry: Core Association
• 游戏 (xn--unup4y) – Chinese for “Game”
  Registry: Spring Fields, LLC

All four of these new strings are Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs).

IDNs are currently available as Second-Level Domains and country code Top-Level Domains, but this will be the first time non-Latin characters can be used in a generic TLD.

International Domain Registry Pty. Ltd, Core Association and Spring Fields, LLC (Donuts) were the applicants for the four first new gTLD’s to be cleared to be delegated.