NeuStar, Inc., a communication services provider, today announced that it has deployed internationalized domain names for Chinese and the Japanese languages in the .biz top- level Internet domain. Interested registrants will be able to secure .biz domain names using these characters from April 21, 2007.

NeuStar's Chinese and Japanese IDN offerings make available 19,000 Han and 178 Katakana and Hiragana characters. All IDN names in .biz can be registered in 1 to 10 year increments, and will be available on a 'first come, first served' basis from accredited .biz registrars.

"China and Japan are two of the world's largest markets for IDNs, and BIZ is the first global domain to implement Chinese and Japanese IDNs in a manner that fully respects the linguistic cultures of both language groups," commented Richard Tindal, vice president of domain name services at NeuStar. "With IDNs becoming more prevalent, we expect that .BIZ will become an essential component of every savvy international company's media mix, particularly among firms with large Chinese- and Japanese-speaking customer bases. Because .BIZ is a generic TLD, it is global in scope, and can reach businesses that operate in these languages anywhere around the world."