Skip to main content

KSK Rollover

On 16 September, the ICANN Board approved plans for the first-ever changing of the cryptographic key that helps protect the Domain Name System (DNS) - the Internet's address book. The Root Key Signing Key (KSK) Rollover is scheduled for 11 October 2018 and will mark the first time the key has been changed since it was first put in use in 2010.

Learn more

Quicklinks

Blog Posts

ICANN GDPR and Data Protection/Privacy Update

Chair's Blog: A Wrap-Up of the Genval Board Workshop

An Update on the Nominating Committee Review

BROWSE ALL BLOG POSTS

News and Announcements

ICANN GDPR and Data Protection/Privacy Update

Thumb data privacy protection update features 24sep18 en

Read the latest blog from Göran Marby, ICANN President and CEO, covering the most recent activities centered around our ongoing Data Protection/Privacy work. The blog describes various aspects of our work with the ICANN community and Board on topics including GDPR, WHOIS, the need for your input, and additional community engagement.

Stay Informed on EPDP Team Deliberations

Thumb epdp stay informed feature 2

Keep up with the fast-moving Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) Team on Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data. Learn about the variety of ways you can follow the progress of the EDPD Team including updates during the ICANN63 Public Meeting.

Moving Forward with Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP)

Thumb moving forward rdap 1563x886 04sep18 en 1

Developed by the technical community as an eventual replacement for the WHOIS protocol, RDAP enables users to access current registration data. RDAP has several advantages over the current protocol, including support for internationalization, secure access to data, and the ability to provide differentiated access to registration data.

View all

A note about our privacy policies and terms of service:

We have updated our privacy policies and certain website terms of service to provide greater transparency, promote simplification, and align with recent changes in privacy 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."