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ICANN Newsletter | Week ending 7 August 2009

News from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

Announcements This Week

GNSO Fast Flux Hosting Working Group Publishes Final Report

7 August 2009 | The Fast Flux Hosting Working Group has just submitted its final report to the GNSO Council.

Lead Networks Files for Arbitration

5 August 2009 | On Friday, 24 July 2009, Lead Networks Domains Pvt. Ltd. ("Lead Networks") began the process of commencing an arbitration proceeding with the American Arbitration Association ("AAA") challenging ICANN's decision to allow the RAA to expire without renewal because of Lead Networks' failure to comply with the requirements of its RAA.

Apply Now For GNSO Council Non Commercial Seats

5 August 2009 | This month the ICANN Board is accepting Statements of Interest from members of the non commercial community who would like to volunteer for three new positions and potentially serve as full GNSO Councilors for the next two years.

Results of Domain Name Front Running Study

4 August 2009 | In an attempt to contribute to community discussion regarding domain name front running, ICANN commissioned a study to assess the occurrence of domain name front running.

Public Comment: Proposed Bylaw Amendments Related to GNSO Restructuring (Version 2)

3 August 2009 | Implementation of the GNSO Improvements process requires the amendment of a substantial number of the ICANN Bylaws to reflect new GNSO structures, processes and mechanisms. A packaged set of draft Bylaws and additional Staff recommendations (Version 2) was posted for Public review and comment so that the ICANN Board can move forward with Bylaw amendments as soon as practicable.

Upcoming Events

25 - 30 October 2009: 36th International Public ICANN Meeting - Seoul, South Korea

7 - 12 March 2010: 37th International Public ICANN Meeting - Nairobi, Kenya

About ICANN

ICANN Bylaws

Our bylaws are very important to us. They capture our mission of security, stability and accessibility, and compel the organization to be open and transparent. Learn more at www.ICANN.org.

Strategic Plan, July 2007 - June 2010

Adopted FY10 Operating Plan and Budget [PDF, 1.47 MB]

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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."