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ICANN Newsletter | Week ending 1 February 2008

News from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

Announcements This Week

Public Comments Requested on Initial Draft Fast-Track Mechanism for Introduction of a Limited Number of IDN ccTLDs

1 February 2008 | This is a first Discussion Draft of the Initial Report of the IDNC Working Group (IDNC WG). It is published for comment and input from the ICANN community.

ICANN Exploring Certification of Backend Registry Operators

31 January 2008 | In advance of the ICANN meeting in New Delhi, India, this announcement is to inform the community that ICANN is exploring a potential initiative for the certification of backend registry operators for new gTLDs.

Successful Evaluations of .test IDN TLDs

31 January 2008 | The Automomica test raised no issue regarding the ability of root-severs and iterative mode resolvers to handle IDN TLD queries.

ICANN Board Recommends Action on Domain Tasting

29 January 2008 | ICANN is looking to effectively end domain tasting with a proposal to start charging the annual ICANN fee on registrar domain registrations.

The Internet Is Your Business: ICANN Seeks Volunteers

28 January 2008 | The Nominating Committee for ICANN is looking for volunteers to help it with the global task of coordinating the Internet's unique identifiers.

Extension Request for Input on the Preparation of the Issues Report from the IDN ccPDP Issues Manager

28 January 2008 | At its meeting on 2 October 2007, the ccNSO Council requested the creation of an Issue Report as a first step in launching a ccPDP.

ICANN in the News

These links lead to external news stories. ICANN is not responsible for the content of these pages.

ICANN Considers Plan to Stop 'Domain Tasting' (The New York Times)

30 January 2008 | A proposal by the overseer of the Internet's addressing system could make it a lot easier for people to reserve the domain name they want for their Web site.

Wanted: Six Volunteers To Help Coordinate the Internet's Unique Identifiers (i-Technology News Desk)

28 January 2008 | "ICANN's work coordinating the Internet's addressing system is at the foundation of the Internet and its future - and we are always looking for people who want to make a contribution," said Hagen Hultzsch, Chair of the Nominating Committee of ICANN as he announced today that ICANN is looking for 6 volunteers. "The Internet is the most powerful communications tool in human history - and the incredible story is how much of this has been accomplished by dedicated volunteers."

Nigeria: ICANN Has Outgrown JPA (Highway Africa News Agency)

26 January 2008 | The chairman and board of directors of ICANN, Chairman, Mr. Peter Dengate Thrush, says ICANN has 'outgrown' the expectations of the JPA.

Notice of Public Meeting Regarding Mid-term Review of the Joint Project Agreement between NTIA and ICANN (National Telecommunications and Information Administration)

18 January 2008 | The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), U.S.Department of Commerce Department, will hold a public meeting on February 28, 2008, to discuss the mid-term review of the Joint Project Agreement (JPA) between the Department and ICANN.

Upcoming Events

4 February 2008 - ESNOG 1 - Madrid, Spain

10 February - 15 February 2008: 31st International Public ICANN Meeting - New Delhi, India

About ICANN

ICANN Bylaws

Our bylaws are very important to us. They capture our mission of security, stability and accessibility, and compel the organization to be open and transparent. Learn more at www.ICANN.org.

Strategic Plan, July 2007 - June 2010

Operating Plan (Draft) Fiscal Year 2007 - 2008

Adopted Budget Fiscal Year 2007 - 2008 [PDF, 426 KB]

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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."