Skip to main content

Now Available

The Post-ICANN68 Policy Report is now available. The report captures decisions and outcomes from the Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees.

Download the Report

Quicklinks

Blog Posts

The Importance of ITHI to You, and How to Participate

Guidelines for Developing New ICANN Learn Courses

Using All the Tools in the Toolbox for Meaningful Engagement

BROWSE ALL BLOG POSTS

News and Announcements

European Union Update: The Digital Services Act

Thumb new government engagement publication 01 icannorg 492x279

Read the latest Government Engagement Publication that provides an update on the Digital Service Act initiative, launched by the European Union. The paper provides a background and analysis of the initiative with the potential relevance to the ICANN community and to ICANN's technical role in the Internet ecosystem.

Using All the Tools in the Toolbox for Meaningful Engagement

Thumb computer screen publication calendar and video icon sm 01 icannorg 492x279

Sally Costerton, Sr. Advisor to the President & SVP, Global Stakeholder Engagement outlines some of the improvements ICANN has made with tools and resources to continue to effectively engage and support the ICANN community in the work that needs to be done. Click on the title above for more information.

Guidelines for Developing New ICANN Learn Courses

Thumb icann learn

ICANN has been continuing to develop self-paced online learning opportunities hosted on ICANN Learn. Learn about the high-level guidelines that will help the community determine when and how to make requests for the development of online courses for the ICANN Learn e-learning platform. Click on the title above to read more.

View all

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."