Skip to main content

Blog

  • RDS-WHOIS2 Review Team Submits Terms of Reference and Work Plan

    The Registration Directory Service Review Team (RDS-WHOIS2) developed and submitted [PDF, 1.64 MB] its terms of reference and corresponding work plan to the ICANN Board to ensure that the team's scope and timeline is consistent with the requirements of the ICANN Bylaws.1...

  • Chair's Blog: A Preview of the Puerto Rico Board Workshop

    Just a month ago, the ICANN Board met in Los Angeles for our first workshop of calendar 2018, and we are already preparing to head to San Juan for what will surely be another productive workshop, from 9 to 11 March, followed by a busy ICANN61. Starting on Friday, 9 March,...

  • Executive Team Update

    I want to extend my warmest wishes and heartfelt thanks to Duncan Burns, Senior Vice President of Global Communications and Managing Director, Washington D.C. Office, who has decided to leave the ICANN organization at the end of March, after ICANN61. In the nearly five...

  • Data Protection/Privacy Update: Latest Developments

    Hero1 gdpr data protection privacy update 750x425 14feb18 en
    My last blog of 25 January focused on the input received on the three proposed interim models for collecting registration data and implementing registration directory services in preparation for the 25 May 2018 enforcement date for the European Union's General Data...

  • Supporting Standards that Ensure an Open and Interoperable Internet

    The Internet as we know it today owes its development and scalability to the meticulous work of thousands of volunteers who develop technical standards and specifications that ensure global interoperability. This work is mostly done by the Internet Engineering Task Force...

  • Chair’s Blog: The Los Angeles Workshop Recap

    With about a month left before many of us gather in Puerto Rico, I wanted to share with you an overview of the most recent Board workshop. Washington, D.C. Visit On my way to Los Angeles for the Board workshop, I stopped in Washington, D.C. for a few days to meet with...

  • Progressing the IANA functions into 2018

    Hero1 davies iana services pti 750x425 08feb18 en
    The last few years have been a period of intense focus on ICANN and the IANA functions — which are the management of key services including updating the DNS root zone, allocating global Internet Protocol address blocks to Regional Internet Registries, and assigning...

  • Announcing Draft Plan For Continuing With The KSK Roll

    A formal ICANN public comment period has been opened to receive community input on a draft plan [PDF, 93 KB] to proceed with the KSK rollover project. This comment period will run until 1 April 2018 and we are eager to receive any and all comments. The plan calls for...

  • The GNSO's New Motto: Be prepared!

    Hero1 gnso new motto 750x425 29jan18 en
    It's a new year, and for the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), that means a new approach to getting things done. Alongside five major Policy Development Processes (PDPs), we have GNSO members participating in three Cross Community Working Groups (CCWGs), four...

  • Accountability Indicators Feedback – 1 October to 31 December 2017

    Hero1 accountability indicators 750x467 24jan18 en
    In August 2017, we launched the Accountability Indicators initiative as a reflection of ICANN's work towards accountability and transparency. The dynamic and interactive Accountability Indicators web page helps you track our progress against our strategic objectives by...

  • Chair's Blog: A Preview of the Los Angeles Workshop

    The new year is finally upon us, and I hope we are all rested and ready for the challenges that lie ahead. I am currently in Washington, D.C., meeting with ICANN stakeholders and community members, on my way to Los Angeles for the next Board Workshop. This time around,...

  • The Draft FY19 Operating Plan and Budget

    Each year, preparing our proposed budget for the next financial year is one of the most important responsibilities ICANN organization has as a not-for-profit operating in the public interest. Long-term financial planning and fiscal responsibility is important, and the...

  • What’s New with ICANN Reviews

    Hero1 icann reviews 750x425 18jan18 en
    Provide Your Input on the Assessment Report for the NomCom2 Review Have you interacted with the Nominating Committee? If so, please share your input on the Nominating Committee Review assessment report to help improve this important body. Join the NomCom2 Review Working...

  • Data Protection and Privacy Update – Plans for the New Year

    As 2017 comes to an end, it's a good time to assess where we are and where we are going with our work to address potential compliance issues with ICANN agreements with generic top-level domain (gTLD) registries and registrars in light of the European Union's General Data...

  • Do You Have a Domain Name? Here's What You Need to Know.

    Hero1 transferring domain name 3127x1692 02feb18 en
    Part III – Having Issues Transferring Your Domain Name? One of the primary purposes of ICANN's Transfer Policy is to provide you with the option to freely move your domain name from one registrar to another. In our last blog, we explained how to do this. If you still have...

  • A Look Back at Our Africa Engagement in 2017

    As the year comes to an end, we wanted to reflect on milestones achieved with the support of you, our community. Your dedication, relentless effort, and collaboration with us, ensured that the 2017 flagship events and meetings were not only successful, but also seamless....

  • Chair's Blog: Year End & Well Wishes

    I am writing to you from the 12th annual meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), in Geneva, Switzerland, where I am here with some of my Board colleagues and members of the ICANN community engaging with the broader Internet governance community. Thematic issues...

  • President's Corner: Finances & Planning for the Next Two Years

    One of my personal priorities for my role in ICANN is continuing to improve ICANN org's efforts to be transparent, accountable and accessible. In this spirit, I am sharing something the Executive Team and I have been spending a lot of time lately, and an area of great...

  • Update on the Root KSK Rollover Project

    The ICANN org is today announcing that it will not roll the root zone KSK in the first quarter of 2018. We have decided that we do not yet have enough information to set a specific date for the rollover. We want to make clear, however, that the ICANN org is committed to...

  • A recap of our 2017 LAC-i-Roadshows

    The LAC+i Roadshow, a project of the Latin America and the Caribbean Strategy, travels across the region to do outreach on key topics related to the critical infrastructure of the Domain Name System (DNS). The regional ICANN community holds four roadshows per year for...

Recent Announcements

Recent Multimedia

A note about our privacy policies and terms of service:

We have updated our privacy policies and certain website terms of service to provide greater transparency, promote simplification, and align with recent changes in privacy 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."