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Restored Names Accuracy Policy

On 21 February 2024 an updated version of the Policy was published to reflect changes required to implement the Registration Data Policy. Click here to view the updated version of this policy.

When a registrar restores a name (from the redemption grace period) that had been deleted on the basis of submission of false contact data or non-response to registrar inquiries, the name must be placed on Registrar Hold status until the registrant has provided updated and accurate Whois information.


Notes

The Restored Names Accuracy Policy is one of four Consensus Policy recommendations on Whois Accuracy and Bulk Access from the GNSO Council, and was approved by the ICANN Board of Directors. This policy will formally become effective beginning 12 November 2004. This policy will be applicable to all ICANN-Accredited registrars pursuant to the Consensus Policies provision (§4.1) in the Registrar Accreditation Agreement.

For additional background concerning the Redemption Grace Period, please refer to the Technical Steering Group's Implementation Proposal at <http://www.icann.org/bucharest/redemption-topic.htm>.

For additional background concerning Whois data accuracy obligations applicable to ICANN-Accredited Registrars, please refer to the following documents:

16 June 2003 Whois Data Reminder Policy Posted
3 April 2003 Registrar Advisory Concerning the "15-day Period" in Whois Accuracy Requirements
3 September 2002 ICANN Announces Steps to Improve Whois Data Accuracy
10 May 2002 Registrar Advisory Concerning Whois Data Accuracy
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."