Announcements - ICANN

Skip to main content

Chinese Community Steps Forward for Chinese TLDs - Forms Generation Panel for Root Zone Label Generation Ruleset (LGR)

ICANN is pleased to announce that the Generation Panel for the Chinese Script Root Zone Label...

24 Sep 2014 | Civil Society, Developing World, DNS Marketplace, Government, IDN, Technology

What to Expect at ICANN 51: A Guide for Business Stakeholders

Date: Thursday, 25 September 2014
Time: 17:00-18:00 UTC (Time Converter)

Please join ICANN's...

22 Sep 2014 | Civil Society, Developing World, DNS Marketplace, Government, Technology

ICG Announces Fourth Conference Call

The IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG) will hold its fourth conference call on...

16 Sep 2014 | Civil Society, Developing World, DNS Marketplace, Government, NTIA Stewardship Transition, Technology

Cross Community Group Informational Call

As previously announced, ICANN will host a call for the Cross Community Group of the Enhancing...

09 Sep 2014 | Civil Society, Developing World, DNS Marketplace, Government, Technology

EXTENDED - Call for Candidates: Seeking Advisors to the ICANN Accountability & Governance Coordination Group

In light of the6 – 27 Septemberpublic comment periodon the Enhancing ICANN Accountability and...

09 Sep 2014 | Accountability, Civil Society, Developing World, DNS Marketplace, Government, Technology

ICG Announces Third Conference Call

The IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG) will hold its third conference call on...

25 Aug 2014 | Civil Society, Developing World, DNS Marketplace, Government, Technology

Fellowship Application Round Opens for ICANN 52 in Marrakech

About the Fellowship Program:

Since its creation in 2007, the Fellowship Program has had over...

08 Aug 2014 | Civil Society, Developing World, Government, Technology

Largest Ever ICANN Meeting Convenes in London | Affirmation of Multistakeholder Model for Internet Governance by World Leaders

More than 3,300 people from around the world have registered for ICANN's 50th meeting in London,...

23 Jun 2014 | Civil Society, Developing World, Government, Technology

Update on Root Zone Label Generation Rule Generation Panel Formation

As we approach ICANN 50, ICANN is pleased to share the steady momentum of the development on the...

21 Jun 2014 | Developing World, IDN, Technology

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."