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Registry-Registrar Agreement (RRA) Amendment Procedure to be used with Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data

Please note that the English language version of all translated content and documents are the official versions and that translations in other languages are for informational purposes only.

ICANN Procedure for Registry-Registrar Agreement Amendments (to be used only with Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data)

Per Section 6.3.2 of the Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data, the ICANN organization has developed the following process for gTLD registry operators to submit amendments to their Registry-Registrar Agreements (RRAs) to include the approved language for the Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data. This process is designed only for registry operators adopting the approved language for the Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data.

NOTE: For all other Registry-Registrar Agreement Amendments or for changes that are not substantially similar to the approved form, the registry is required to follow the existing Registry-Registrar Agreement (RRA) Amendment Procedure and obtain ICANN approval.

Steps for registry operators to follow to amend their Registry-Registrar Agreements in accordance with Section 6.3.2 of the Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data:

  1. The registry requesting the amendment must provide ICANN with a cover note [PDF, 34 KB] attesting that the registry operator is updating its Registry-Registrar Agreement only to incorporate the approved provisions included in the *model Registry-Registrar Agreement Amendment Terms [PDF, 59 KB] along with the CLEAN and REDLINE of the Registry-Registrar Agreement incorporating the approved Temporary Specification for gTLD language.

    The registry should submit the cover note and the CLEAN and REDLINE versions of the Registry-Registrar Agreement via the Naming Services portal by creating a new Registry-Registrar Agreement Amendment case. For registries who operate more than one (1) gTLD, the registry operator must identify which TLDs the amended Registry-Registrar Agreement applies. This can be provided within the cover note, as an attachment to the cover note, or as an attachment to the Registry-Registrar Agreement.

  2. ICANN will acknowledge receipt of the submission via the portal. Once the registry operator receives the acknowledgement from ICANN, the registry operator can send the amended Registry-Registrar Agreement to its registrars. If the Registry-Registrar Agreement is incorporated into the registry agreement, ICANN will publish the updated version on the registry agreement website.

Please email the ICANN Global Support Center at globalsupport@icann.org with any questions.

RRA Amendment Cover Note for Temporary Specification modifications [PDF, 34 KB]

*ICANN Temporary Specification Model Registry-Registrar Agreement Amendment Terms (PDF): English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish

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."