Skip to main content
Resources

Public Comments Needed

ICANN has a number of topics currently open for comment. Are you new to the Public Comment Forum? Find out why your comments are integral to ICANN's document, report and policy development process. If you are already familiar with the Forum you can take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the issues now available for public comment.

What is the Public Comment Forum?

The Public Comment Forum is an interactive comment forum setup to encourage discussion and insightful conversation on important ICANN documents & policy. Documents are open to comment for a minimum of twenty-one days, during a period known as the Comment Period. Participants are then able to respond to these comments during the Reply Period. Comments and replies are gathered and provided to the document's submitting organization or committee.

What is the Public Comment Forum's role within ICANN?

The Public Comment Forum is an essential part of ICANN's consensus-driven, multi-stakeholder model. Projects, policy, documents and reports are placed in the Forum to gain input from the community. The goal is through the comprehensive discussion and understanding of multiple viewpoints, constituents are able to draw toward consensus on the issues presented.

Who can participate in the Public Comment Forum?

You! Everyone is welcome to participate in the Public Comment Forum. It's as easy as sending an email to the staff contact located on the overview page of the document you wish to comment on.

If you have never participated in the Forum we suggest you read our Rules and Procedures before you get started.

What is open for Public Comment right now?

There are currently fourteen different documents with Comment Periods or Reply Periods open.

Open for Comments Now

Title Comment Period Close Date [UTC Time] Reply Period Close Date [UTC Time]
Draft Recommendations Overall Policy for the Selection of IDN ccTLD Strings 18 October 2012 [23:59] 9 November 2012 [23:59]
DRAFT Statement of ICANN's Role and Remit in Security, Stability and Resiliency of the Internet's Unique Identifier Systems 16 June 2012 [23:59] 16 July 2012 [23:59] Extended to 31 August 2012 [23:59]
Interisle Consulting Group's WHOIS Proxy/Privacy Reveal & Relay Feasibility Survey 25 June 2012 [23:59] 16 July 2012 [23:59]; Extended to 31 July 2012 [23:59] Extended to 22 August 2012 [23:59]
Security, Stability & Resiliency of the DNS Review Team (SSR RT) Final Report 30 July 2012 [23:59] 29 August 2012 [23:59]
.name Registry Agreement Renewal 2 August 2012 [23:59] 23 August 2012 [23:59]
Locking of a Domain Name Subject to UDRP Proceedings 15 August 2012 [23:59] Extended to 3 September 2012 [23:59] 5 September 2012 [23:59] Extended to 24 September 2012 [23:59]
Preliminary Issue Report on Uniformity of Contracts to Address Registration Abuse 15 August 2012 [23:59] 5 September 2012 [23:59]
DSSA Working Group Phase 1 Report 13 September 2012 [23:59] 21 October 2012 [23:59]
SSAC Report on Dotless Domains 23 September 2012 [23:59] 14 October 2012 [23:59]

A note about our terms of service:

We have updated our electronic terms of service to provide greater transparency and align with laws applicable to us. Learn more.

This site uses cookies to deliver an efficient user experience and to help us see how the site is used. Learn more.OK

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."