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Announcements

Call for Expressions of Interest: Standing Panel for ICANN’s Independent Review Process

LOS ANGELES – 31 March 2020 – Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers...

ICANN Publishes Staff Report On ICANN’s FY21–25 Operating and Financial Plan and Draft FY21 Operating Plan and Budget Public Comment Proceeding

LOS ANGELES – 31 March 2020 – On 27 March, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and...

IANA Naming Function Review Team Completes Rules of Engagement, Scope of Work, and Work Plan

LOS ANGELES – 31 March 2020 – Today, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Naming...

Guidelines for Developing Reference Label Generation Rules (LGRs) for the Second Level Version 2

Open Date: 30 March 2020 Close Date: 12 May 2020
Originating Organization: Global Domains...

 |  Announcement, Technology

Addendum to the Initial Report of the Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) on the Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data Team – Phase 2

Open Date: 26 March 2020 Close Date: 5 May 2020
Originating Organization: Generic Names...

Invitation to Join Strategic Outlook Trends Identification Session

LOS ANGELES – 23 March 2020 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)...

ICANN's GDD Industry Summit and DNS Symposium Cancelled

LOS ANGELES – 18 March 2020 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)...

 |  Announcement, Technology

Phase 1 Initial Report of the Review of All Rights Protection Mechanisms in All gTLDs Policy Development Process

Open Date: 18 March 2020 Close Date: 27 April 2020
Originating Organization: Generic Names...

 |  Announcement, Technology

ICANN67 GAC Communiqué Now Available

LOS ANGELES – 16 MARCH 2020 – Today, the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) of the Internet...

 |  Announcement, Technology

ICANN Community Excellence Award: Nomination Closes 27 March 2020

LOS ANGELES – 16 March 2020 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)...

 |  Announcement, Civil Society, Developing World, DNS Marketplace, Government, Technology

Mikhail Anisimov Joins ICANN

BRUSSELS - 16 March 2020 – Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers...

ICANN74 Policy Forum Location Announced

LOS ANGELES – 13 March 2020 – Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers...

 |  Announcement, Technology

ICANN’s Open Data Platform Now Live

LOS ANGELES – 11 March 2020 – Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers...

 |  Announcement, Technology

ICANN67 Public Forum: Time Allocated for Community Discussion on Proposed Transfer of Ownership of Public Interest Registry

LOS ANGELES – 4 March 2020 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)...

 |  Announcement, DNS Marketplace

Public Comment Period Extended: Second Security, Stability, and Resiliency (SSR2) Review Team Draft Report

Los Angeles – 3 March 2020 – The deadline to submit comments on the Second Security, Stability,...

 |  Announcement, Civil Society, Developing World, DNS Marketplace, Government, Security, SSR, Technology

Proposal for Bangla Script Root Zone‬ Label Generation Rules

Open Date: 2 March 2020 Close Date: 23 April 2020
Originating Organization: Global Domains...

 |  Announcement, Technology

Meeting Schedule for ICANN67 Virtual Community Forum Now Available

LOS ANGELES – 28 February 2020 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)...

 |  Announcement, Technology

ICANN Implements New Travel Guidance

LOS ANGELES – 28 February 2020 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)...

 |  Announcement, Technology

Proposal for Chinese Script Root Zone‬ Label Generation Rules

Open Date: 28 February 2020 Close Date: 20 April 2020
Originating Organization: Global...

 |  Civil Society, DNS Marketplace, Public Comment

Upcoming Middle East DNS Forum Postponed

ISTANBUL – 27 February 2020 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)...

 |  Announcement, Civil Society, Developing World, DNS Marketplace, Government, Technology

ICANN Announces NextGen@ICANN68 Participants

LOS ANGELES – 24 February 2020 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)...

 |  Announcement, Civil Society, Developing World, DNS Marketplace, Government, Technology

ICANN to Hold First-Ever Remote Public Meeting

LOS ANGELES – 19 February 2020 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)...

Middle East and Adjoining Countries (MEAC) Strategy 2021-2025

Open Date: 18 February 2020 Close Date: 3 April 2020
Originating Organization: Global...

 |  Announcement, Technology

Implementation of Consensus Policy for the Protection of Red Cross & Red Crescent Identifiers

LOS ANGELES – 18 February 2020 – Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers...

Name Collision Analysis Project (NCAP) Study 1

Open Date: 13 February 2020 Close Date: 31 March 2020
Originating Organization: Office of the...

 |  Announcement, Technology

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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."