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ICANN Newsletter | Week ending 6 March 2015

News from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

Announcements This Week

Fellowship Program Brings Global Voices Together at ICANN | Fellows Announced for ICANN 53 in Buenos Aires

6 March 2015 | 50 fellows from 35 countries have been selected to participate in ICANN's Fellowship program at the 53rd Public Meeting in Buenos Aires, 21-25 June 2015.

Upcoming ICG Calls

4 March 2015 | The IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG) has scheduled its thirteenth and fourteenth conference calls.

Call for RSVPs | GNSO Working Group Newcomer Open House Session | 12 March 2015 at 12:00 UTC

4 March 2015 | The GNSO Working Group Newcomer Open House Session returns on 12 March 2015 at 12:00 UTC and we are pleased to invite you to participate.

Nomination Period Extended For ICANN Multistakeholder Ethos Award | Award Targeted for ICANN 53 | Nominations Close 20 March 2015

3 March 2015 | On 10 December 2014 ICANN announced the opening of the nomination period for ICANN's 2015 Multistakeholder Ethos Award Program. The nomination period has been extended and will close on 20 March 2015.

"GNSO Working Group Newcomer Open House Session" Re-Launch

3 March 2015 | After our first trial year, we are pleased to announce that the Newcomer Open House sessions will continue in 2015 with a number of improvements that are aimed at increasing participation, offering a more flexible agenda and encouraging further interaction during the sessions with the Community hosts and GNSO Policy Staff that are supporting these sessions.

Update: New gTLD Applicant and GDD Portal Q&A Published

2 March 2015 | Questions and Answers related to the reported security issue in the New gTLD Applicant and GDD portals, as noted in the announcements below, have been published at https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/new-gtld-applicant-portal-qa-02mar15-en.pdf [PDF, 192 KB].

Release of Country and Territory Names within the .EMERCK, .HAMBURG and .BERLIN TLDs

2 March 2015 | Three (3) Registry Services Evaluation Policy (RSEP) requests were submitted by the registry operators listed below to allow the release of country and territory names for the below TLDs. In total, the requests concern 3 New gTLDs.

2015 Nominating Committee Application Period Ends Soon

2 March 2015 | Time is running out to put your name forward to join the team of global leadership, largely volunteers, who help the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) coordinate the policies and processes that shape the future of the Internet.

Upcoming Events

21-25 June 2015: 53rd International Public ICANN Meeting – Buenos Aires

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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."