ICANN Acronyms and Terms

A Domain Name System (DNS) protocol mechanism through which a partial copy of a DNS zone can be replicated to a remote DNS server.

One of the accountability mechanisms mandated by ICANN's Bylaws.

An IRP provides a means by which a party can raise claims that an action or inaction taken by the ICANN Board, individual Directors, Officers, or staff members violates ICANN's Articles of Incorporation or Bylaws, The IRP allows for review of such claims by independent neutral panelists and provides an alternative to legal action in a court.

A project that aims to systematically analyze the preferences of cyberattackers and possible measures to mitigate malicious activities across top-level domains.

A process that allows ICANN Contractual Compliance to work closely with contracted parties to address contractual compliance matters before pursuing formal remedies to enforce compliance.

The digital devices, protocols, and infrastructure that enable access to information through telecommunications. Today, the Internet is a major component in the ICT landscape, and ICT developers are continually creating new digital devices and communication technologies for it.

In the New Generic Top-Level Domain Program (New gTLD Program), the first stage in ICANN’s review of an application for a gTLD. During this stage, ICANN reviews the applied-for string, assesses the applicant's technical and financial capabilities, and evaluates the applicant's proposed registry services.

The technical experts who evaluate the Label Generation Rules developed by Generation Panels and integrate the rules into the unified set of Root Zone Label Generation Rules (RZ-LGR). This panel is responsible for carrying out the second phase of the Procedure to Develop and Maintain the Label Generation Rules for the Root Zone in Respect of Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA) Labels.

The Integration Panel is composed of individuals with expertise in the Domain Name System, the Unicode Standard, and scripts. After incrementally integrating one or more sets of Label Generation Rules into the unified RZ-LGR, the panel posts the updated version of the RZ-LGR to the ICANN website.

An intangible creation of human intellect that is protected by law from unauthorized use. Examples of intellectual property include inventions, processes, works of art, trademarks, and trade names. Within the ICANN community, intellectual property owners are represented by the Intellectual Property Constituency within the Commercial Stakeholder Group.

A constituency within the Commercial Stakeholder Group of the Generic Names Supporting Organization. The IPC represents the interests of owners of intellectual property, with a focus on areas where intellectual property rights (e.g., trademarks and copyrights) intersect with the Domain Name System.

A policy that defines the responsibilities of each of the registrars involved in a transfer of a domain name from one registrar to another. This policy describes the responsibilities for inter-registrar transfers (requested by a registrant) and for bulk transfers (requested by ICANN).

An international nongovernmental organization that develops and publishes international standards that are voluntary and consensus-based. The Domain Name System uses the two-letter names defined in ISO 3166-1 as identifiers for country code top-level domains.

A notational standard for phonetic representation in multiple languages.

A specialized agency of the United Nations that develops international technical standards that enable networks and other information and communications technologies to interconnect. ITU’s original purpose was to allocate the global radio spectrum and satellite orbits.

ITU is a member of ICANN’s Technical Liaison Group, which gives the ICANN Board authoritative information about technical standards that relate to ICANN’s activities.

A domain name in which one or more of its labels contain characters other than ASCII letters, digits, or hyphens. Because IDNs support the use of Unicode characters, they can include characters from local languages and scripts. For example, [실례.테스트], is a domain name composed entirely of Hangul characters.

IDNs are implemented using the Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA) protocol.

An expedited process for the application of top-level domains that represent countries or territories using domain names that include characters from non-Latin scripts.

A repository on the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) website where representatives from top-level domains can contribute the Internationalized Domain Name tables they use. The repository enables other domain registries to reuse these tables.

A second-level domain is a domain name that has been registered within a top-level domain. IDN SLDs have local characters at the second level of the domain, while the top-level domain remains in ASCII-only characters. For example: παράδειγμα.test ("example.test" in Greek).

A specification that defines the permitted characters and rules for combining characters to form labels in the languages and scripts applicable to a particular zone of the Domain Name System (DNS). Zone managers create IDN tables to establish policies for the DNS zones they manage.

The terms Internationalized Domain Name table and Label Generation Rules are synonymous. The term Label Generation Rules is favored when rules are specified in Request for Comments (RFC) 7940 format.

An internationalized label for a domain in the root zone (a top-level domain). The current Label Generation Rules require an IDN TLD to conform to the Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA) protocol.

Alternative code points identified in an IDN table.