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  • Improving our Planning and Preparation

    Over the last year, we all have worked hard to understand the European Commission’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation. One question that has been asked many times is: why didn’t we start the process earlier? I guess there are many answers to that...

  • ADOBE CONNECT – WHAT NEXT?

    As you know, the ICANN organization took down its Adobe Connect service midway through the ICANN61 meeting in response to reported issues with this service. Concurrently, we began to conduct our own forensic analysis of the reported incident and began working with our...

  • What I’ve Learned in a Year of Complaints

    In March 2017, the ICANN Complaints Office was established, and I was named the ICANN org Complaints Officer. Since we started accepting submissions in May 2017, we have received 858 from around the globe. Of those 858, 22 were complaints regarding the ICANN org, and 836...

  • Accountability Indicators Feedback - January to March 2018

    We launched the Accountability Indicators seven months ago demonstrating ICANN Organization's continuing commitment to improve accountability and transparency. It is a dynamic and interactive web page that helps you track our progress against our strategic objectives by...

  • Supporting Community Policy and Advice Work – A Few Key Indicators

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    Earlier this week, the Policy Development Support Department published the Post-ICANN61 Policy Report. The report captures decisions and outcomes from the work of the three Supporting Organizations (SOs) and four Advisory Committees (ACs) at the San Juan meeting this past...

  • Chair’s Blog: Our Sympathies

    Our community has sustained a tragic loss. It is with great sadness that I offer condolences on behalf of the ICANN Board on the passing of Stéphane Van Gelder. Stéphane was an active member of the ICANN community for many years, serving as Vice Chair and Chair of the...

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

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    Part IV – How to Protect Your Domain Name Against Domain Hijacking or Unauthorized Transfers For many registrants, domain names (and the services connected to them, like websites and emails) are essential to their professional and personal lives. Whether used for online...

  • Interim Tools for Remote Participation

    As you know, during ICANN61 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the ICANN organization was made aware of possible issues with our Adobe Connect services. In an abundance of caution, we took immediate action and deactivated Adobe Connect services – both for external and internal...

  • Chair's Blog: ICANN61 Meeting & Board Workshop

    I would be remiss if I didn't begin this blog by thanking the people of Puerto Rico for such a wonderful experience during ICANN61. The conference center was great, the hosts gracious and the island is recovering after hurricane Maria. I hope to visit Puerto Rico again...

  • Data Protection/Privacy Issues: ICANN61 Wrap-up and Next Steps

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    I want to thank everyone from across the community who participated in discussions around the ICANN61 meeting on the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and its impact on registration directory services, as well as ICANN's contracts. Your...

  • Budget Discussions at ICANN61

    During ICANN61, a major topic of conversation was the FY19 draft Budget and Operating Plan. As you’ve heard from me, 80-85 percent of our budget is already committed to certain projects that are in our Bylaws, our contracts, our operations, and other fixed costs. This...

  • More Information on the Adobe Connect Issue

    In our last blog on this issue, we reported that our technical teams are testing various scenarios to determine the root cause of the technical issue affecting our use of Adobe Connect. We are investigating whether the issue was caused by the software, or ICANN's...

  • Next Stop: ICANN62 in Panama City

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    ICANN61 in Puerto Rico has been a memorable meeting. After six days of intense work and dynamic discussions, I can say that this meeting has been successful and special. The ICANN community decided to honor its commitment to host the meeting in Puerto Rico after the...

  • Update on ICANN61 Adobe Connect Issues

    I wanted to provide you with a brief update on the issue with our Adobe Connect services. The issue is one that could possibly lead to the disclosure of the information shared in an ICANN Adobe Connect room. We are still investigating the root cause of the issue. We have...

  • Issues with Adobe Connect at ICANN61

    I want to share a note I sent to the community earlier today regarding a security issue related to our use of Adobe Connect. Please see below for information regarding this issue. "Yesterday we were notified by a member of the Security and Stability Advisory Committee of...

  • Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Puerto Rico

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    Many of the streets in old San Juan are paved with adoquines, or blue cobblestone pavers, made from waste from iron smelting. The famous cobblestones were brought as ballast on European ships in the 18th century, and were later used to pave streets of San Juan. Over...

  • Why I Love the International Office Strategy

    I am proud of many things the ICANN organization has put in place since I've been at ICANN for nearly two years now. One that I am very excited about is our international office strategy. The international office strategy recognizes that stakeholders in different parts of...

  • Co-Chairs Statement from CCWG-Accountability Meeting in San Juan

    On 9 March 2018, the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability) held a face-to-face meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to further its discussions on Work Stream 2. Sixty-two members and participants attended in-person and remotely...

  • From Pilots to Kickoff: The Open Data Initiative

    For an introduction to this project, please consult the ICANN Open Data Initiative page. ICANN's Open Data Initiative produced a number of early pilots as part of an exercise in making data available via both an application program interface (API) and online, interactive...

  • Welcome to ICANN61!

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    It is my absolute pleasure to welcome you to ICANN61 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. This is the first ICANN Public Meeting held on the island since 2007, and it could not have come at a more important time. Having this meeting in San Juan is a testament to the strength and...

  • An Interview with Pablo Rodriguez of NIC.PR, ICANN61's Local Host

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    Pablo Rodriguez is Executive VP of NIC.PR, ICANN61's local host. For many years, he has been influential in many organizations in the domain name industry in North America and Latin America and the Caribbean. In ICANN, Rodriguez was involved in the work that led to the...

  • Enhancing Transparency in Contractual Compliance Reporting

    In an earlier blog, Enhancing Transparency in Contractual Compliance, I briefed the community on the Contractual Compliance department's initiative to enhance transparency around our reporting. I'd like to briefly update you on this initiative's latest developments. Our...

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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."