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Contractual Compliance Monthly Update | December 2012

Table of Contents 1

Registrar Update

Focused Effort to Address Whois Inaccuracy Backlog and Prepare for the "New" Consolidated Complaint Management System

In mid December 2012, ICANN processed, reviewed and closed over 3000 complaints; some were closed while many advanced per process and were sent to registrars for investigation. A team of 11 members worked closely together over a short period of time to process a backlog of tickets. This team building activity helped to develop staff members’ knowledge and skills and helped the team to prepare for the launch of the new consolidated contractual compliance system scheduled for late January 2013. The Whois Data Problem Report System (WDPRS) is scheduled first to migrate into this new system.

Audit Program Update

The ICANN Contractual Compliance Audit Program, launched on 26 November 2012, is now in the RFI 3rd notice phase per contractual compliance 1-2-3 notification process. Of the 323 Requests for Information (RFI) sent via email and fax to 317 Registrars and six top-level domains, 36 notices were sent out to registrars who did not respond or complete the RFI. As of 4 January 2013, 22 registrars are outstanding with the RFI information.

Audit statistics for 26 November 2012 thru 2 January 2013

Audit Statistics for 26 November 2012 Thru 2 January 2013

Please refer to http://www.icann.org/en/resources/compliance/audits to learn more about this program.

Please send your questions to ComplianceAudit@icann.org.

Audit Program Milestone Dates
Start   End
Pre-Audit Notification Request for Info Audit Phase Reporting Phase Remediation
  1st Notice 2nd
Notice		 3rd
Notice		 Begin End Begin End  
13 Nov. 2012 26 Nov. 2012 17 Dec. 2012 28 Dec. 2012 7 Jan. 2013 12 Apr. 2013 15 April 2013 19 April 2013 22 April 2013

Complaints Handling and Enforcement Summary

Complaints per Cycle December 2012
Enforcement Activity for December 2012

Please refer to http://www.icann.org/en/resources/compliance/newsletter for up-to-date information.

1 This update is provided for information purposes only. Please do not rely on the information contained within this update to make conclusions or business decisions.

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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."