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ICANN Newsletter | Week ending 21 August 2009

News from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers


Announcements This Week

Public Comment: Post-Expiration Domain Name Recovery

20 August 2009 | The Post-Expiration Domain Name Recovery Working Group that was launched following the adoption of its charter by the GNSO Council on 24 June 2009 is requesting your input.

Fellowship Program Brings Global Voices Together at ICANN

18 August 2009 | Global input and ideas will be on the rise at the 36th International Public Meeting of ICANN thanks to ICANN's on-going Fellowship program.

Public Comment: Security & Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) Retreat

18 August 2009 | ICANN's Security & Stability Advisory Committee is proposing to hold a retreat 30 September — 1 October 2009. The retreat would inform SSAC members, and help the committee prioritize its activities and prepare a work plan.

Review of the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO)

17 August 2009 | ICANN is seeking to appoint an independent consultant to undertake the first External Review of the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO).

Expressions of Interest Sought for Bulk Transfer of Registrations

17 August 2009 | As the result of the recent de-accreditation of registrar Simply Named Inc. dba SimplyNamed.com (IANA ID 807), ICANN is seeking expressions of interest from ICANN-accredited registrars that might wish to assume sponsorship of the gTLD names that were previously managed this registrar.

Transfer Process Begins for Deaccredited Registrars

17 August 2009 | Guidance is provided for registrants who may be affected by this action.


Upcoming Events

25 - 30 October 2009: 36th International Public ICANN Meeting - Seoul, South Korea

7 - 12 March 2010: 37th International Public ICANN Meeting - Nairobi, Kenya


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

Adopted FY10 Operating Plan and Budget [PDF, 1.47 MB]


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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."