Skip to main content

Featured News

Get Updates
Mandy Carver

Mandy Carver Named SVP, Government & IGO Engagement Team

06 Dec 2019

learn.icann.org

New ICANN Learn Course: Policy Writing for Public Comment

06 Dec 2019

Icons

ccTLDs Invited to Participate in DAAR

06 Dec 2019

ICANN68 Policy Forum

ICANN68 Fellowship Application Round Now Open

06 Dec 2019

Announcements

Mandy (Kathryn A.) Carver Appointed Senior Vice President of ICANN's Government & IGO Engagement Team

LOS ANGELES – 6 December 2019 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today announced that Mandy (Kathryn A.) Carver has been appointed to the position of Senior Vice President, Government & Intergovernmental...

06 Dec 2019  |  Technology, Announcement

ICANN Announces NextGen@ICANN67 Participants

LOS ANGELES – 06 December 2019 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has announced the individuals selected to participate in the NextGen Program at ICANN67 in Cancún, Mexico from 7-12 March 2020. The 12 individuals...

06 Dec 2019  |  Civil Society, Developing World, DNS Marketplace, Government, Technology, Announcement

Country Code Top-Level Domains Can Now Participate in ICANN’s Domain Abuse Activity Reporting (DAAR) System

LOS ANGELES – 19 November 2019 – Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced that country code top-level domain (ccTLD) operators will now be able to actively participate in the Domain Abuse Activity Reporting...

19 Nov 2019  |  DNS Marketplace, Technology, Announcement, ccTLD

ICANN68 Fellowship Application Round Now Open

LOS ANGELES – 15 November 2019 – Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) opened the Fellowship Program application round for ICANN68. This round is open only to those who have previously completed an ICANN Fellowship...

15 Nov 2019

BROWSE ALL ANNOUNCEMENTS

Multimedia

0

Implementation of PDP 3.0

Rafik Dammak, GNSO Council Vice Chair (NCSG) and Flip Petillion, GNSO Councillor (IPC) share an update on the PDP 3.0 Implementation.

0

Third At-Large Summit (ATLAS III) Update at ICANN66

Olivier Crépin-Leblond, former ALAC Chair, and Maureen Hilyard, ALAC Chair, discuss ATLAS III at ICANN66.

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

Enhancing ICANN’s Investment Policies

Chair's Blog: ICANN66 Meeting & Board Workshop

Hero1 igf 800x300 19nov19 en

ICANN Takes DNS Discussions to the 14th Internet Governance Forum

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."