Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) Committee
See ICANN President's Advisory Committee for Internationalised Domain Names. The below information is maintained for historical purposes.
Many efforts are underway in the Internet community to make domain names available in character sets other than ASCII. These "internationalized domain name" (IDN) efforts were the subject of a 25 September 2000 resolution by the ICANN Board of Directors, in which it recognized "that it is important that the Internet evolve to be more accessible to those who do not use the ASCII character set," but stressed that "the internationalization of the Internet's domain name system must be accomplished through standards that are open, non-proprietary, and fully compatible with the Internet's existing end-to-end model and that preserve globally unique naming in a universally resolvable public name space."
In March 2001, the ICANN Board created an Internal Working Group to investigate facts and identify issues that may arise concerning IDNs. The Internal Working Group issued its final report on 28 August 2001. Based on that report the ICANN Board created the IDN Committee.
The committee is a multi-disciplinary "temporary" committee formed under Article VII, Section 1(c), of the ICANN bylaws to serve as a general coordination body for the work on policy issues identified in the IDN Working Group's final report and other policy issues that the IDN Committee identifies. It was created by resolutions 01.94 through 01.100, which provided:
Resolved [01.94] that IDN Committee is hereby established under Article VII, Section 1(c), of the ICANN bylaws to serve as a general coordination body for the work on policy issues identified in the IDN Working Group Report and such other policy issues that the IDN Committee shall identify;
Further resolved [01.95] that the IDN Committee shall be responsible for promoting the coordination of the work of the ICANN supporting organizations, committees, and other groups on the policy issues arising from IDNs, as documented in the final report, and to promote timely development of policy recommendations on those issues for consideration by the community and the ICANN Board;
Further resolved [01.96] that in its policy-coordination activities, the IDN Committee should seek to ensure that any recommendations are achieved through a bottom-up process, and that those recommendations reflect a wide range of expertise on the different aspects relevant to the issues;
. . .
Further resolved [01.99] that the IDN Committee is encouraged to commission panels of volunteer experts from different countries with practical experience in the policy issues identified in the Final Report, and linguistic experts (including experts in non-ASCII character sets and languages not spoken by persons active in current discussions); and
Further resolved [01.100] that the IDN Committee is requested to present its initial work plan, schedule, and proposed budget for approval by the ICANN Board at the third ICANN annual meeting, to be held in Marina del Rey in November 2001.
The members if the IDN Committee are:
- Masanobu Katoh (Committee Chair) (ICANN Director)
- Mouhamet Diop (ICANN Address Council)
- Patrik Fältström (IETF/IESG)
- Qiheng Hu (Internet Society of China)
- John Klensin (IAB Chair)
- Sang-Hyon Kyong (ICANN Director)
- Stuart Lynn (ICANN President)
- Elisabeth Porteneuve (ICANN Names Council)
- Mohamed Sharil Tarmizi (GAC Vice Chair)
- Vincent Wen-Sung Chen (TWNIC)
The IDN Committee is responsible for promoting the coordination of the work of the ICANN supporting organizations, committees, and other groups on the policy issues arising from IDNs (as documented in the final report of ICANN Board Working Group), and to promote timely development of policy recommendations on those issues for consideration by the community and the ICANN Board. The IDN Committee expects to complete its work by 30 June 2002.
- Briefing Paper on Internet Keyword Issues (15 February 2002)
- Statement on Internet Keyword Issues (15 February 2002)
- Briefing Paper on IDN Permissible Code Point Problems (27 February 2002)
- Input to the IETF on IDN Permissible Code Point Problems (27 February 2002)
- Discussion Paper on Non-ASCII Top-Level Domain Policy Issues (17 April 2002)
- Discussion Paper on Non-ASCII Top-Level Domain Policy Issues (13 June 2002)
- Discussion Paper on Registry Selection Considerations for Non-ASCII Top-Level Domains (13 June 2002)
- Final Report (27 June 2002)
- Presentation at Shanghai IDN Workshop (28 October 2002)
- Presentation at Shanghai Public Forum regarding Internationalized Domain Names (30 October 2002)
