[zeeone]

Internationalizing the domains names is utterly pointless. Most keyboards in the world are in latin, which means that people who use a different alphabet have to switch keyboard mode. It's just not convenient. Imagine this:

  > goole.com
  > Alt-Shift-Win (to switch)
  > говедо.ком
  > Alt-Shift-Win (switch back)

Bah ... bulshit.

[ivan_i]

Why do you think that Google woudn't register something like гугл.рф? I think it's for folks from the pure rural areas who don't know the latin alphabet at all. They have a right to use computers and the internet too.

[dmix]

But... the keyboards.

[zeeone]

You're missing the point. The folks in the rural areas won't be able to use a computer in the first place, because the keyboards are in latin. I've never seen a Cyrillic or Arabic keyboard.

[denik]

Every keyboard sold in Russia has both latin and cyrillic letters on it.

[ilyak]

...and newer Windows default on the local (i.e. cyrillic) layout.

Some clueless linux distros even install cyrillic layout as the only one; which is completely unusable of course.