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• In Focus
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In order for the full resources of the Internet to be globally available for all users, service and application providers must make use of the complete range of top-level domains (TLDs).

A current list of all top-level domains that have been delegated within the authoritative root-server system is available here. This list is maintained by the IANA and provides a regularly-updated index of TLDs that currently exist in the root zone.

Rejection of some TLD strings due to outdated length parameters or other erroneous formatting criteria can be avoided by reliance on authoritative information. As described in Support of New Top-Level Domains by Internet Infrastructure Operators and Application Providers (2003), and Evaluation of New gTLDs (2004), several technical acceptance issues were associated with the gTLDs introduced in 2000-2001. This was particularly true for TLDs of more than 3 characters.

Cooperation among registry operators, ISPs, and others who deal with domain names on a regular basis is critical to ensuring the continued realization of the Internet's potential for commerce and communications. In October of 2004, ICANN opened a discussion forum on TLD acceptance issues to foster cooperation among the necessary parties. The archive of this discussion forum is available here. To join this discussion list, simply send a message to majordomo@icann.org with the words "subscribe tld-acceptance" in the body of the message.

To submit questions or contribute additional material that may be helpful in further work on this subject, please contact ICANN.

Announcements

ICANN Releases Beta-3 Version of TLD Verification Code
22 March 2007

ICANN has issued today a new version of code intended to assist software developers and application providers whose work assists others in using the DNS.

ICANN Releases Beta TLD Verification Tool
3 December 2006

Today ICANN released a beta version Top-Level Domain (TLD) Verification Tool. This verification tool has been developed in response to problems reported by gTLD registries and end-users of the non-acceptance of some existing TLDs. These problems occur in some current applications because: 1) they do not recognize any TLD of more than three characters; or, 2) they rely on legacy information where only com/net/org and a handful of ccTLDs are recognized as valid.

ICANN Creates Area on Universal Acceptance of TLDs
20 March 2006

In order for the full resources of the Internet to be available to all users globally, service and application providers must make use of the complete range of top-level domains (TLDs). To promote accessibility of up-to-date TLD information, ICANN is making available a new page of resources related to this topic.

Universal Acceptance of all gTLD Names
18 October 2004

Other Resources

• IANA List of Delegated Top-Level Domains
• IANA Reports
• ICP-3: A Unique, Authoritative Root for the DNS
• Keeping the Internet A Reliable Global Public Resource: Response to New.net Policy Paper
• RFC 3696
• TLD-Acceptance Discussion Forum
• TLD Verification Tool
• Why universal resolvability is important (a non-technical explanation)