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ICANN Newsletter | Week ending 24 October 2008

News from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

Announcements This Week

Public Comment: CRAI Report on gTLD Registries and Registrars

24 October 2008 | ICANN requested CRAI to perform economic research pursuant to two resolutions of the ICANN Board of Directors: 1) the 18 October 2006 resolution of ICANN's Board of Directors seeking more information relating to the registry and registrar marketplace; and, 2) the 26 June 2008 resolution of ICANN's Board, directing the development and completion of a detailed implementation plan for the new gTLD Policy.

Public Comment: IDN ccTLD Fast Track Draft Implementation Plan

23 October 2008 | ICANN is pleased to make the Draft Implementation Plan for the IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process available for public discussions.

How to Apply for a New Generic Top-Level Domain: Draft Applicant Guidebook Now Available for Comment

23 October 2008 | A draft 'Applicant Guidebook' for new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) is now available for review and comment.

ALAC Review WG Posts Mid-Point Consultation Report

23 October 2008 | The ALAC Review Working Group (WG) has released its Mid-point Consultation Report for discussion with the ICANN community.

Draft Strategic Plan Priorities Posted for Comment

20 October 2008 | As part of its annual planning cycle, ICANN is seeking comments on a draft of the priorities for the strategic plan.

Explanatory Memoranda Papers for New GTLDs Applicant Guidebook

21 October 2008 | In the lead up to ICANN's Cairo public meeting, the new generic top-level domain (gTLD) Applicant Guidebook, also called the "draft Request for Proposal (RFP)", will be released for public comment.

Bulk Transfer of Esoftwiz Domains to Name.com

21 October 2008 | As a result of the de-accreditation of registrar Esoftwiz Inc., ICANN initiated a process to identify a gaining registrar to receive Esoftwiz's gTLD names.

Public Comment: AGP Limits Policy

20 October 2008 | ICANN opened a public comment period on the draft implementation plan for the AGP Limits Policy.

Upcoming Events

2 - 7 November 2008: 33rd International Public ICANN Meeting - Cairo, Egypt

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Domain Name System
Internationalized Domain Name ,IDN,"IDNs are domain names that include characters used in the local representation of languages that are not written with the twenty-six letters of the basic Latin alphabet ""a-z"". An IDN can contain Latin letters with diacritical marks, as required by many European languages, or may consist of characters from non-Latin scripts such as Arabic or Chinese. Many languages also use other types of digits than the European ""0-9"". The basic Latin alphabet together with the European-Arabic digits are, for the purpose of domain names, termed ""ASCII characters"" (ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange). These are also included in the broader range of ""Unicode characters"" that provides the basis for IDNs. The ""hostname rule"" requires that all domain names of the type under consideration here are stored in the DNS using only the ASCII characters listed above, with the one further addition of the hyphen ""-"". The Unicode form of an IDN therefore requires special encoding before it is entered into the DNS. The following terminology is used when distinguishing between these forms: A domain name consists of a series of ""labels"" (separated by ""dots""). The ASCII form of an IDN label is termed an ""A-label"". All operations defined in the DNS protocol use A-labels exclusively. The Unicode form, which a user expects to be displayed, is termed a ""U-label"". The difference may be illustrated with the Hindi word for ""test"" — परीका — appearing here as a U-label would (in the Devanagari script). A special form of ""ASCII compatible encoding"" (abbreviated ACE) is applied to this to produce the corresponding A-label: xn--11b5bs1di. A domain name that only includes ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens is termed an ""LDH label"". Although the definitions of A-labels and LDH-labels overlap, a name consisting exclusively of LDH labels, such as""icann.org"" is not an IDN."