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Announcements

The ICANN History Project Goes Live

LOS ANGELES – 4 May 2017 – ICANN is pleased to announce the launch of the ICANN History Project....

 |  Announcement, Civil Society, Government, Technology

Independent Examiner Issues Final Report on Review of the At-Large Organization

After extensive consultation with the At-Large and the broader ICANN community, including a...

 |  Announcement, Civil Society, DNS Marketplace, Technology

Revised ICANN Procedure for Handling Whois Conflicts with Privacy Law: Assessment and Next Steps Now Available for Public Comment

LOS ANGELES – 3 May 2017 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today...

 |  Announcement, DNS Marketplace, Technology

Date Change for ICANN62 in June 2018 to be held in Panama

The ICANN Board has approved Panama as the location in Latin America to host ICANN's 62ndpublic...

 |  Announcement, Technology

Recommendations to Improve SO/AC Accountability

Open Date: 14 April 2017 Close Date: 26 May 2017
Originating Organization: Cross Community...

 |  Accountability, Civil Society, Technology

Deferral of Country Code Names Supporting Organization Review

Open Date: 6 April 2017 Close Date: 19 May 2017
Originating Organization: Multi Stakeholder...

 |  Announcement, DNS Marketplace, Technology

Proposed Fundamentals Bylaws Changes to Move the Board Governance Committee's Reconsideration Process Responsibilities to Another Board Committee

Open Date: 31 March 2017 Close Date: 10 May 2017
Originating Organization: Legal
...

 |  Announcement, DNS Marketplace, Reconsideration, Technology

ICANN60 Fellowship Application Round Now Open

lCANN launches the application round for those interested in participating in the ICANN60 Public...

 |  Civil Society, Technology

Successful Candidates Announced for ICANN59 Fellowship

ICANN announces 55 individuals from 43 countries selected to participate in ICANN's Fellowship...

 |  Civil Society, Technology

Proposal for Ethiopic Script Root Zone‬ Label Generation Rules (LGR) ‬

Open Date: 23 March 2017 Close Date: 5 May 2017
Originating Organization: Global Domains...

 |  Civil Society, DNS Marketplace, IDN, Technology

GNSO Community Comment 2 (CC2) on New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Policy Development Process

Open Date: 22 March 2017 Close Date: 1 May 2017
Originating Organization: GNSO
...

 |  DNS Marketplace, gTLD, New gTLDs, Technology

ICANN Launches Testing Platform for the KSK Rollover

13 March 2017 – ICANN is offering a testing platform for network operators and other interested...

 |  Announcement, Technology

Call for Public Comment on the Draft 2016 African Domain Name System Market Study

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

 |  DNS Marketplace, Technology

Krista Papac Named as ICANN Complaints Officer

10 March 2017 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today announced...

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

ICANN's Draft FY18 Operating Plan and Budget, and Five-Year Operating Plan Update

Open Date: 8 March 2017 Close Date: 28 April 2017
Originating Organization: ICANN
...

 |  Government, Technology

Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) Implementation Guidelines

Open Date: 3 March 2017 Close Date: 17 April 2017
Originating Organization: Global Domains...

 |  DNS Marketplace, IDN, Technology

Interim Paper Cross-Community Working Group on Use of Names of Countries and Territories as Top Level Domains

Open Date: 24 February 2017 Close Date: 21 April 2017
Originating Organization: ccNSO/GNSO,...

 |  ccTLD, DNS Marketplace, gTLD, New gTLDs, Security, Technology

Recommendations to Improve ICANN's Transparency

Open Date: 21 February 2017 Close Date: 10 April 2017
Originating Organization: Cross...

 |  Accountability, DNS Marketplace, Technology, Transparency

ICANN Publishes "Identifier System Attack Mitigation Methodology" Document

Today, ICANN published "Identifier System Attack Mitigation Methodology" document, authoring of...

 |  DNS Marketplace, Security, SSR, Technology

Join the Webinar on the Draft Report of the Review of the At-Large Community

Join ICANN and independent examiner ITEMS International (ITEMS) for a webinar on the Draft...

 |  DNS Marketplace, Technology

CCWG-Accountability Work Stream 2 Issues Jurisdiction Questionnaire

The newly-adopted ICANN Bylaws created several Work Stream 2 accountability subgroups. One of...

 |  Accountability, Technology

Operating Standards for ICANN Reviews: Recent Developments and Next Steps

Join the webinars on Operating Standards for Reviews and help contribute to this important...

 |  Technology

Apply Now for Public Technical Identifiers (PTI) Director Positions: Deadline Is 21 March 2017

The ICANN Nominating Committee (NomCom) invites interested individuals to submit applications...

 |  Civil Society, NTIA Stewardship Transition, Technology

ICANN Releases Identifier Systems SSR Activities Report

As part of our continuing commitment to transparency and accountability, ICANN's Identifier...

 |  DNS Marketplace, Technology

Reminder: Nomination Period For ICANN Multistakeholder Ethos Award | Award Targeted for ICANN59 | Nominations Close 20 March 2017

Submit Nominations Via the Ethos Award Nomination Form

ICANN is pleased to remind community...

 |  Civil Society, 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."