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ICANN Newsletter | Week ending 16 May 2014

News from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers


Announcements This Week

WHOIS Online Accuracy Reporting System: Request for Proposal

16 May 2014 | The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ("ICANN") is seeking one or more providers to assist ICANN in the development, operation, and maintenance of the WHOIS Online Accuracy Reporting System.

ICANN FY13 Form 990

15 May 2014 | ICANN filed its Form 990 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2013 with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on May 13, 2014 in compliance with the extended due date of May 15, 2014.

Report: Supporting the Domain Name Industry in Underserved Regions

14 May 2014 | This is a report about supporting the domain name industry in underserved regions, prepared by ICANN staff for public comment. Public comments on this report will be used to determine next steps to support the domain name industry in underserved regions.

I* Post-NETmundial Meeting Statement

13 May 2014 | Leaders of the organizations responsible for coordination of the Internet technical infrastructure (loosely referred to as "I* leaders") met on 25 April in São Paulo, Brazil following the NETmundial meeting. During the 1-day I* leaders meeting, the group considered a range of issues where dialogue among Internet technical organizations is useful.

GNSO Video Site Launches

12 May 2014 | The GNSO website is currently undergoing some changes to improve its user friendliness and accessibility. One of the new features on the site is a new GNSO video page.


Upcoming Events

22-26 June 2014: 50th International Public ICANN Meeting – London

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, 2012 - 2015

Adopted FY14 Operating Plan and Budget

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."