ICANN Announcements

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First Version of Label Generation Rules for the Root Zone Released

2 March 2016

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ICANN is pleased to announce that the first version of Label Generation Rules for the Root Zone (LGR-1) has been released. LGR-1 is designed to be the first installment of a conservative set of rules to determine the validity and variants of labels for the DNS Root Zone. Read the blog to learn more about the community's efforts to further promote a multilingual Internet.

LGR-1 was developed following the Procedure to Develop and Maintain the Label Generation Rules for the Root Zone in Respect of IDNA Labels [PDF, 1.39 MB]. It contains code points, variants and rules for the Arabic script, defined by the community and evaluated by the Integration Panel. As additional script LGR proposals are approved and meet the requirements for integration, new versions of the integrated LGR will be released. Once finalized, each version can be applied mechanically to determine the validity of an applied-for top-level domain label and the maximal set of its allocatable variant labels for the scripts supported. Further mechanisms are being developed to determine which of these allocatable variant labels will actually be allocated to those who have applied for top-level domains.

About ICANN

ICANN's mission is to help ensure a stable, secure and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet, you have to type an address into your computer - a name or a number. That address has to be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN helps coordinate and support these unique identifiers across the world. ICANN was formed in 1998 as a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation and a community with participants from all over the world. ICANN and its community help keep the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It also promotes competition and develops policy for the top-level of the Internet's naming system and facilitates the use of other unique Internet identifiers. For more information please visit: www.icann.org.