Skip to main content

Featured News

Get Updates
ITI

Information Transparency Initiative Update

15 May 2020

Image of server

Brief Overview of the Root Server System

15 May 2020

2020 NomCom Update

An Update from the 2020 NomCom

15 May 2020

ICANN Blog

Introducing the DNS Security Facilitation Initiative Technical Study Group

15 May 2020

Announcements

Call for Expressions of Interest: ICANN 2021 Nominating Committee Chair and Chair-Elect

LOS ANGELES – 29 May 2020 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) organization is seeking expressions of interest for the Chair and Chair-Elect of the 2021 Nominating Committee (NomCom). The NomCom Chair is responsible...

29 May 2020  |  Technology, Announcement

Register for ICANN68 Prep Sessions

LOS ANGELES – 28 May 2020 – Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) released the ICANN68 Prep Sessions schedule. A total of eleven webinars will help prepare the community ahead of the Virtual Policy Forum being held...

28 May 2020

ICANN and FIRST Sign Memorandum of Understanding on DNS Threats Mitigation

LOS ANGELES – 22 May 2020 – Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams, Inc. (FIRST). The MoU aims to...

22 May 2020  |  Technology, Announcement

ICANN Announces Successful String Evaluation for Israel IDN ccTLD

LOS ANGELES – 19 May 2020 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today announced the successful completion of String Evaluation of the proposed Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) country code top-level domain (ccTLD)...

19 May 2020  |  Civil Society, Announcement

BROWSE ALL ANNOUNCEMENTS

Multimedia

0

Historia de la Corporación para la Asignación de Nombres y Números en Internet (ICANN)

El Proyecto sobre la historia de la ICANN explora los acontecimientos significativos en el crecimiento de la ICANN, desde su creación hasta la actualidad. Este proyecto procura preservar la memoria...

0

История Интернет-корпорации по присвоению имен и номеров (ICANN)

В проекте «История ICANN» исследуются поворотные события на пути развития ICANN, с момента рождения организации и по настоящее время. Цель проекта – сохранить коллективную память организации,...

Artworks 000634440697 gbyhtu t500x500

2020 NomCom Update

Jay Sudowski, Chair of the 2020 ICANN Nominating Committee (NomCom), Ole Jacobsen, the 2020 NomCom Chair-Elect and Damon Ashcraft, the 2020 NomCom Associate Chair, give ICANN's James Cole an update...

Artworks 000634439056 u0ji0l t500x500

Customer Standing Committee (CSC) Update At ICANN66

Byron Holland, Chair, Inaugural CSC, discusses the successes and future of the CSC.

BROWSE ALL MULTIMEDIA

Blog Posts

An Update from the SSR2 Review Team

Registrant Program Update: New Report on Registrant Issues and Challenges & ICANN Learn Course for Registrants

A Preview of the Improved ICANN.org: An Information Transparency Initiative (ITI) Update

BROWSE ALL BLOG POSTS

Sign Up to Get News Updates

Tell us which topics you care about and we'll send updates to your homepage and email.

Already have an Account? Sign In

A note about our privacy policies and terms of service:

We have updated our privacy policies and certain website terms of service to provide greater transparency, promote simplification, and align with recent changes in privacy 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."