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ICANN Newsletter | Week ending 27 April 2012

News from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

Announcements This Week

TAS Interruption - Update (27 April 2012)

27 April 2012 | ICANN will notify all applicants within the next seven business days whether our analysis shows they were affected by the technical glitch in the TLD application system.

TAS Interruption - Update (26 April 2012)

26 April 2012 | Many users have expressed concern that they are currently unable to view their applications in the TLD application system that has been temporarily suspended due to a technical issue. We can confirm that when the application system reopens, users will be able to review their applications, including those already submitted, to assure themselves that their information remains as they intended.

Period of 26 April - 06 May 2012: Public Comment Periods Approaching Closing Date

26 April 2012 | Public Comment periods are approaching their Comment or Reply Period Close dates, 26 April – 06 May 2012.

TAS Interruption - Update (25 April 2012)

25 April 2012 | ICANN's system for applying for new generic top-level domains, known as TAS, remains offline due to a technical glitch.

ICANN's Board Chair Inducted into Internet Hall of Fame

24 April 2012 | ICANN Board Chair Dr. Stephen Crocker is among the inaugural inductees into the Internet Hall of Fame.

ICANN Nominating Committee Candidate Recruitment Period Has Ended

24 April 2012 | The 2012 Nominating Committee application period closed on Monday, 16 April 2012 at 23:59 UTC.

TAS Interruption - Update (23 April 2012)

23 April 2012 | ICANN made progress over the weekend in identifying all applicants who may have been affected by the technical issue that caused the TLD application system, or TAS, to be taken offline.

IANA Customer Satisfaction Survey

23 April 2012 | ICANN is conducting a short survey to gather our customers' perspective on the way ICANN provides IANA services.

TAS Interruption - Update (22 April 2012)

22 April 2012 | ICANN continues to work diligently to test the fix for the technical glitch that required the temporary suspension of the TLD application system, or TAS, and to identify affected applicants so that we can reopen the system as soon as possible.

TAS Interruption - Update (21 April 2012)

21 April 2012 | ICANN has posted a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document to respond to questions about the temporary suspension of the TLD application system.

Upcoming Events

24 - 29 June 2012: 44th International Public ICANN Meeting - Prague

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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."