The challenges of Arabic language use on the Internet

The Arabic language is used by a significant percentage of the world´s population. Furthermore, beyond personal and public communication within the Arab countries, the Arabic language is becoming very important on the Internet. Numerous documents, resources and applications rely on the language to reach the Arabic speaking audiences. Thus the Arabic language is striving to take its place among the languages supported on Internet such as English, French and Chinese. Efforts are being taken to increase Arabic content, Arabic-based search tools and other models and applications on the Internet. In this paper we offer an overview of the evolution of the Arabic language use on the Internet. There are several obstacles and challenges that the language faces and those need to be resolved efficiently to make the language more usable. Furthermore, we explore how the Arabic language evolution and use on the Internet affects the business world.