Skip to main content

Blog

  • 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...

  • Our Communications in Latin America and the Caribbean During 2017

    This blog is becoming a tradition! It's interesting to see how far we have come by reading our previous blogs: 2015 LAC Communications highlights and 2016 LAC Communications highlights. For the third year in a row, as the year comes to an end, we are happy to share our...

  • Tec Monterrey and the Fourth LAC DNS Forum

    Hero1 lac dns forum 12dec17 en
    Some say the key to sustainable development is the knowledge economy. A place that exemplifies this idea in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region is Monterrey, Mexico. The city is home to the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education – also known as...

  • What’s New with Reviews?

    Hero1 icann reviews 750x425 11dec17 en
    ICANN Reviews are one of several important accountability mechanisms that help demonstrate how ICANN delivers on its commitments. There are many ways you can get involved and share your input to Reviews. Learn about the latest participation opportunities below. Specific...

  • ICANN61 Confirmed for Puerto Rico

    The ICANN Meetings team recently visited Puerto Rico to assess the recovery progress made since Hurricane Maria, and are pleased to reconfirm San Juan as the location for ICANN61. The meeting will be held from 10-15 March 2018. We recognize that Puerto Rico is still in...

  • ICANN Participation in Global Conference on Cyberspace 2017

    Hero1 apac gccs copy
    The Global Conference on Cyberspace (GCCS) brings governments, the private sector, and civil society together to promote practical cooperation in cyberspace, work towards enhancing capacity building, and discuss norms for responsible behavior in cyberspace. The GCCS...

  • Eastern European DNS Forum: Two Years Old and Growing

    Hero1 emea eednsf 3600x2025 04dec17 en
    On 12 and 13 October 2017, we held the second Eastern European DNS Forum (EE DNS Forum) in Minsk, Belarus, hosted by Belarusian country code top-level domain (ccTLD) technical administrator hoster.by. With over 160 participants from more than 10 countries from the region...

  • ICANN in Wuzhen, China - Fourth World Internet Conference and More

    Hero1 wuzhen
    In a few days, I will be visiting China for the Fourth World Internet Conference (WIC), and will also visit Chinese community members in the vicinity. ICANN is not new to the WIC, also known as the Wuzhen Summit. Members of the ICANN community, Board, and organization...

  • Inaugural Central European Internet Governance Forum Held in Warsaw

    Hero1 emea ceigf 3600x2025 28nov17 en
    Last week marked an important milestone for Internet governance in Central Europe, as the region held its first Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Warsaw, Poland. This regional IGF comes on the heels of the Polish IGF, which was held for the first time last year and...

  • Assisting Registrants in Areas Affected by Hurricane Maria

    Hero1 hurricane maria 750x425 21nov17 en
    We have recently heard from community members that registrants affected by Hurricane Maria may be unable to renew their domain name due to ongoing issues with the electric power grid and telecommunications infrastructures in the Caribbean and surrounding areas. This means...

  • Data Protection/Privacy Activity Recap

    Hero1 data protection privacy recap 750x425 17nov17 en
    We have just returned from a very busy ICANN60 meeting in Abu Dhabi, where there were many productive community discussions focused on the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We want to provide you with a brief recap of these dialogues, recent...

Recent Announcements

Recent Multimedia

A note about tracking cookies:

This site uses cookies to deliver an efficient user experience and to help us see how the site is used. If you would like to read more about the use of cookies, click here

This notice is intended to appear only the first time you visit the site on any computer.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."