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ICANN Newsletter | Week ending 14 February 2014

News from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers


Announcements This Week

Generation Panel for the Arabic Script Root Zone Label Generation Rules Seated

14 February 2014 | ICANN is pleased to announce that the Generation Panel for the Arabic Script Root Zone Label Generation Rules (LGR) has been seated.

Statement from the I* Leaders Coordination Meeting, Santa Monica, 14 February 2014

14 February 2014 | Leaders of the organizations responsible for coordination of the Internet technical infrastructure (loosely referred to as "I* leaders") met last week in Santa Monica, California, USA. During the 2-day meeting, they discussed activities underway and exchanged views and updates on a range of topics.

Qualified Launch Program for New gTLD Registries

13 February 2014 | As contemplated by the TMCH Requirements, a Qualified Launch Program may be developed and incorporated into the requirements. A draft of the Qualified Launch Program Addendum (the "QLP Addendum") is being posted for comment to give the community an opportunity to review and provide feedback.

WEBINAR: ICANN Strategy Panel on Public Responsibility Framework

12 February 2014 | You are invited to an update on the activities of the Strategy Panel on Public Responsibility Framework. The work of the ICANN Strategy Panels will inform ICANN's new, overarching vision and five-year strategic plan.

Proposed Review Mechanism to Address Perceived Inconsistent Expert Determinations on String Confusion Objections

11 February 2014 | To solicit community input regarding a proposed review mechanism to address perceived inconsistent Expert Determinations in the String Confusion Objection process in the New gTLD Program. The review mechanism will be limited to the Expert Determinations made on String Confusion objections for .CAR/.CARS and .CAM/.COM.

ICANN CEO to Meet with Chinese Internet Industry Leaders in Beijing

11 February 2014 | Beijing, China… ICANN President and Chief Executive Officer Fadi Chehadé has arrived in Beijing for several days of meetings with leaders of China's Internet and telecommunications community.

Request for Information on Registration Directory Service User Accreditation (Available Until 10 March 2014)

10 February 2014 | ICANN is publishing Request for Information (RFI) to identify any organizations capable of accrediting users of the new Registration Directory Service (RDS) now under consideration to replace the current WHOIS system.

Proposed Modifications to GNSO Operating Procedures to Address Resubmission of Motions and Working Group Self Assessment

10 February 2014 | The Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Standing Committee on Improvements Implementation (SCI) is recommending a modification of: (1) the GNSO Operating Procedures to include the possibility of Resubmission of Motions to the GNSO Council; and (2) the GNSO Working Group (WG) Guidelines to Add a WG Self Assessment Mechanism.


Upcoming Events

23-27 March 2014: 49th International Public ICANN Meeting – Singapore

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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."