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Announcements

Webinar Operational Design Phase Concept Paper: Update and Community Discussion

LOS ANGELES – 4 January 2021 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)...

 |  Announcement, Developing World

Nomination Opens for Dr. Tarek Kamel Award for Capacity Building

LOS ANGELES – 20 July 2020 – Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers...

 |  Announcement, Developing World

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

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 Launches Dr. Tarek Kamel Award and Opens Nomination for ICANN Community Excellence Award

LOS ANGELES - 27 January 2020 – Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers...

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

Register Now to Participate in the 7th Middle East DNS Forum

Register Now to Participate in the 7th Middle East DNS Forum

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

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

Third Accountability and Transparency Review Team (ATRT3): Webinar on Draft Report

Third Accountability and Transparency Review Team (ATRT3): Webinar on Draft Report

LOS...

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

Proposed Final Report of the New gTLD Auction Proceeds Cross Community Working Group

Open Date: 23 December 2019 Close Date: 14 February 2020
Originating Organization: New gTLD...

 |  Civil Society, Developing World, DNS Marketplace, Government, gTLD, New gTLDs, Technology

Request for Proposal: IMRS Cluster (Singapore) Network Connectivity

LOS ANGELES – 23 December 2019 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)...

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

Request for Proposal: IMRS Cluster (Singapore) Co-Location

LOS ANGELES – 23 December 2019 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)...

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

Request for Quotation: Network Equipment Refresh 2020

LOS ANGELES – 23 December 2019 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)...

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

Request for Quotation: Server Equipment Refresh 2020

LOS ANGELES – 23 December 2019 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)...

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

ICANN Publishes Updated Domain Name Marketplace Indicators

LOS ANGELES – 9 December 2019 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)...

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

ICANN Announces NextGen@ICANN67 Participants

LOS ANGELES – 06 December 2019 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)...

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

Call for SOs/ACs to Nominate Fellowship Program Mentors

LOS ANGELES – 13 November 2019 – ICANN's Supporting Organizations (SOs) and Advisory Committees...

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

Register Now to Participate in the 4th Eastern European DNS Forum

BRUSSELS – 2 October 2019

Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)...

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

ICANN Releases Community-Wide Survey Findings on Age Diversity and Participation

LOS ANGELES – 2 October 2019 – Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers...

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

Registration Open for ICANN Academy 2020 Leadership Program

LOS ANGELES – 2 October 2019 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)...

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

Register for ICANN66 Prep Week Webinars

LOS ANGELES – 16 September 2019 – Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers...

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

ICANN65 Fellowship Program Post-Meeting Report and ICANN66 Statements of Interest Are Now Available

LOS ANGELES – 08 August 2019 – Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers...

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

Request for Proposal: Name Collision Analysis Project (NCAP) Study 1

LOS ANGELES – 9 July 2019 –The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is...

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

ICANN64 Fellowship Program Post-Meeting Report and ICANN65 Statements Of Interest Are Now Available

LOS ANGELES – 13 May 2019 – The Fellowship Program Post-Meeting Report from ICANN64 is now...

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

Proposed FY20 Operating Plan and Budget for ICANN Board Adoption Published

LOS ANGELES – 02 May 2019 – Today, the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers...

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

Call for Volunteers: NomCom Review Implementation Working Group

LOS ANGELES - 25 March 2019 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN),...

 |  Announcement, Civil Society, Developing World, DNS Marketplace, Government, 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."