Skip to main content
Resources

ICANN Newsletter | Week ending 27 December 2013

News from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

Announcements This Week

Bulk Transfer of Domain Names from Dynamic Dolphin, Inc. to BigRock Solutions Ltd.

24 December 2013 | ICANN has authorized the bulk transfer of gTLD domain names from Dynamic Dolphin, Inc. to BigRock Solutions Ltd. due to compliance actions taken by ICANN that resulted in the de-accreditation of Dynamic Dolphin, Inc.

Beta Testing for Automated Registrar Onboarding System (AROS) to Begin in January 2014

24 December 2013 | In an effort to prepare for the upcoming launch of a new Registry/Registrar accreditation tool, ICANN is inviting Registries and Registrars to participate in a Beta Test session of Automated Registrar Onboarding System (AROS).

ICANN Publishes Quarterly Financial Report (Q1) for Fiscal Year 2014

24 December 2013 | ICANN achieves another milestone in its financial accountability and transparency, with the publication for the first time of its quarterly financial statements report.

Fellowship Program Brings Global Voices Together at ICANN | Fellows Announced for Singapore Meeting

23 December 2013 | 42 fellows from 31 countries have been selected to participate in ICANN's Fellowship program at the 49th Public Meeting in Singapore, 23-27 March 2014.

Upcoming Events

23-27 March 2014: 49th International Public ICANN Meeting – Singapore

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

A note about our terms of service:

We have updated our electronic terms of service to provide greater transparency and align with 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."