Skip to main content

Featured News

Get Updates
GNSo Policy Briefing ICANN65

GNSO Policy Briefing

13 Jun 2019

APIGA 2019

Pre-ICANN65 Policy Report Now Available

13 Jun 2019

Icon of person

ICANN Launches New Registration System

13 Jun 2019

Image of icons

Adopted FY20 Budget and Five-Year Operating Plan Update To Take Effect on 1 July 2019

13 Jun 2019

Announcements

Draft Final Report of The Second Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO2)

Open Date: 17 June 2019 Close Date: 4 August 2019 Originating Organization: Multistakeholder Strategy and Strategic Initiatives (MSSI) Categories/Tags: Reviews/Improvements Brief...

17 Jun 2019  |  Technology, Announcement

ICANN Extends Call for Expressions of Interest for 2020 Nominating Committee Chair and Chair-Elect through 5 July 2019

Los Angeles – 14 June 2019 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) organization is seeking expressions of interest for leadership roles in the 2020 Nominating Committee (NomCom) - that of the 2020 NomCom Chair and...

14 Jun 2019  |  Technology, Announcement

Draft Financial Assumptions & Projections and Operating Initiatives for the development of Fiscal Years 2021-2025 Operating & Financial Plan

Open Date: June 14, 2019 Close Date: August 5, 2019 Originating Organization: Office of the Chief Operating Officer Categories/Tags: Operations, Finance, FY21-25 Operating & Financial Plan, FY21-25...

14 Jun 2019  |  Technology, Announcement

ICANN Publishes Results of Five-Year NextGen@ICANN Survey

LOS ANGELES – 13 June 2019 – Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) published the results of its Five-Year NextGen@ICANN Survey. Nearly all respondents said that participating in the NextGen Program has enhanced...

13 Jun 2019  |  Technology, Announcement

BROWSE ALL ANNOUNCEMENTS

Multimedia

0

Universal Acceptance (UA) Ambassadors Share Their Experiences

Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) Secretary General Don Hollander interviews UA Ambassador Mark W. Datysgeld, UA Ambassador Ashish Modi, Chair UASG Ajay Data, Vice-Chair – UASG Dušan...

0

Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) Update

ICANN's Brad White, North America Communications Director sits down with GNSO Chair Keith Drazek and GNSO Council Liaison to the EPDP Team Rafik Dammak to discuss Expedited Policy Development...

Artworks 000504172647 y1l4r1 t500x500

Universal Acceptance (UA) Ambassadors Share Their

Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) Secretary General Don Hollander interviews UA Ambassador Mark W. Datysgeld, UA Ambassador Ashish Modi, Chair UASG Ajay Data, Vice-Chair – UASG Dušan...

Artworks 000503488644 5nsx58 t500x500

Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) Update

ICANN's Brad White, North America Communications Director sits down with GNSO Chair Keith Drazek and GNSO Council Liaison to the EPDP Team Rafik Dammak to discuss Expedited Policy Development...

BROWSE ALL MULTIMEDIA

Blog Posts

Chair’s Blog: A Preview of the Marrakech Board Workshop

ICANN to Launch a Pilot Childcare Grants Program for its Community

Your Input Needed: A New Step in ICANN Org’s Operating and Financial Planning

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."