Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the group that manages Web addresses worldwide, said it will allow domain names to be in languages other than English.

The group will begin accepting applications for so-called Internationalized Domain Names, or Web addresses based on the native languages and scripts of each country, on Nov. 16, Marina del Rey, California-based ICANN said in a statement today.

“This is only the first step, but it is an incredibly big one and an historic move toward the internationalization of the Internet,” ICANN Chief Executive Officer Rod Beckstrom said in the statement. “We just made the Internet much more accessible to millions of people in regions such as Asia, the Middle East and Russia.”

The new domain names will initially be limited to those involving country codes. For example, Russians will be able to use local script at the end of the address instead of “.ru,” ICANN said.

The nonprofit organization is also trying to introduce Web- address suffixes in addition to the current 21 so-called generic top-level domain names such as “.com,” “.net” and “.org.”

Last month, the U.S. Commerce Department said it reached an agreement on managing Internet addresses with ICANN. The accord declares ICANN is independent and not controlled by any one entity, the company said on its Web site.

To contact the reporters on this story: Kevin Cho in Seoul at kcho2@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 30, 2009 01:00 EDT