Skip to main content

Announcements

Public Comments on New gTLDs/Famous Names Invited

For the last nine months, Working Groups B (famous names) and C (new gTLDs) of the ICANN Domain...

Press Communiqué: ICANN Launches Membership Web Site for Individual Internet Users

Marina del Rey, CA, USA (25 February 2000) The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and...

ASO General Assembly for 2000 and Call for ICANN Board Nominations

The Address Council of the Address Supporting Organisation is pleased to announce the first ASO...

ICANN Begins Posting Issue Papers for Cairo Meeting

The next ICANN meeting is scheduled for March 7-10, 2000, in Cairo, Egypt. In advance of that...

ICANN Public Forum for Ad Hoc Group on Numbering and Addressing

In response to requests from a number of interested companies and individuals, ICANN has created...

ICANN ASO - Website and Discussion Lists

This is an announcement to all parties with interests in management of Internet Address space...

Update on ICANN Cairo Meetings & Call for Sponsors

On behalf of the local organizing committee, I would like to extend a warm welcome to all who...

Press Communiqué: ICANN Accredits Twelve New Domain Name Registrars

(January 25, 2000) The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced...

Comment Concerning Trailing-Hyphen Domain Names

Since the implementation of the Internet domain-name system in the 1980s, the specifications...

Press Communiqué: ICANN Accredits Ten New Domain Name Registrars

(December 21, 1999) The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced...

Press Communique: ICANN Accredits Eleven New Domain Name Registrars

(October 26, 1999) The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced...

Press Release: ICANN Board Appoints Louis Touton Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary

Marina del Rey, CA (October 19, 1999) - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers...

Press Release on ICANN-DoC-NSI Tentative Agreements | ICANN, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Network Solutions, Inc., Announce Tentative Agreements on Future of Domain Name System

(Marina del Rey, CA) -- The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)...

Press Communique: ICANN Accredits Twelve New Domain Name Registrars

(September 21, 1999) The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced...

Press Communique: ICANN Names Seven New Post-Testbed Registrars

(August 11, 1999) The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced...

Press Communique: ICANN Names Fifteen New Post-Testbed Registrars

(July 6, 1999) The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced today...

Press Release: ICANN Statement on Hacking of Network Solutions' Servers

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

INTERNET CORPORATION FOR ASSIGNED NAMES AND NUMBERS (ICANN) STATEMENT ON...

Press Communiqué: ICANN Names Eight New Post-Testbed Registrars

(May 25, 1999) The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced today...

Press Release: ICANN Names Competitive Domain-Name Registrars

(WASHINGTON - April 21, 1999) The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)...

Press Release: ICANN to Announce First Five Competitive Domain Name Registrars

What:

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN-www.icann.org) will...

New Deadline for Testbed Registrar Accreditation: April 8, 1999

(March 25, 1999) The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today announced...

Press Release: Governments Endorse Private Sector Internet

For Immediate Release

(Singapore, March 2, 1999) -- A powerful group of governments today...

ICANN Releases Draft Accreditation Guidelines for Domain-Name Registrars | Proposal to be Available for Public Comment at www.icann.org

Los Angeles-In a first step towards establishing fair and consistent guidelines and procedures...

Press Release: ICANN Announces International Education and Public Outreach Support in Collaboration with Alexander Ogilvy

Los Angeles, Calif. - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced...

Press Release: ICANN Taps Paul Twomey to Develop and Lead its Governmental Advisory Committee | Australian Internet Leader Brings Wealth of International Expertise to ICANN

Los Angeles, Calif. - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a new,...

A note about our terms of service:

We have updated our electronic terms of service to provide greater transparency and align with 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."