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ICANN Newsletter | Week ending 15 August 2014

News from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers


Announcements This Week

Public Comment Invited: Proposed Bylaws Changes Regarding Consideration of GAC Advice

15 Aug 2014 | ICANN is posting for public comment proposed Bylaws revisions that would incorporate a higher voting threshold for the Board to determine not act consistently with the advice of the Governmental Advisory Committee.

ICANN 2014 Nominating Committee Announces Selections

15 Aug 2014 | The ICANN 2014 Nominating Committee (NomCom) has completed its selections for six leadership positions within ICANN.

Bulk Transfer of Names from IPXcess.com Sdn Bhd to Above.com Pty Ltd.

14 Aug 2014 | ICANN has authorized the bulk transfer of gTLD domain names from IPXcess.com Sdn Bhd to Above.com Pty Ltd. due to the non-renewal of IPXcess.com Sdn Bhd's Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA).

Enhancing ICANN Accountability and Governance - Process and Next Steps

14 Aug 2014 | ICANN today published Enhancing ICANN Accountability and Governance - Process and Next Steps, a document that describes the process to examine how, from an organizational perspective, ICANN's accountability mechanisms should be strengthened to address the absence of its historical relationship with the US Government including looking at strengthening existing accountability mechanisms.

At-Large Seeks Your Feedback on the 2nd ATLAS Declaration

12 Aug 2014 | The Second At-Large Summit (ATLAS II), which was held concurrently during ICANN's 50th meeting, attracted nearly 150 At-Large Structures from 70 countries. The ATLAS II Declaration, a key deliverable of the Summit, focuses on the post-ATLAS II endeavors of the At-Large community, ensuring that the user perspective is placed at the center of ICANN activities. The At-Large community now seeks your feedback on the ATLAS II Declaration!

Update: The IANA Functions Infographic

11 Aug 2014 | ICANN today released a new IANA Functions Infographic which explains how the core IANA functions allow users like you to access the Internet. The revised infographic incorporates feedback from the community.


Upcoming Events

12-16 October 2014: 51st International Public ICANN Meeting – Los Angeles

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, 2012 - 2015

Adopted FY14 Operating Plan and Budget

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."