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Registration Data Access Protocol Timeline

The below summarizes key milestones in the development and implementation of Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP).

  • 2019                      
    • 26 August 2019 is the deadline for the technical implementation of an RDAP service
    • On 27 February 2019, the ICANN org issued a legal notification to generic top-level domain (gTLD) registries and registrars of the requirement to implement an RDAP service by 26 August 2019.
  • 2018
  • 2017
    • On 1 September 2017, the ICANN org accepted the proposal to implement RDAP and started the first phase: an RDAP pilot.
    • On 1 August 2017, the gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group with support from the Registrar Stakeholder Group submitted a proposal to the ICANN org to implement RDAP with a first phase in the form of an RDAP pilot.
  • 2016
    • On 26 July 2016, ICANN org published a gTLD RDAP profile. Subsequently, the gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group requested that ICANN org not use that profile and instead work together on a modified plan to implement RDAP.
  • 2015
    • In September 2015, ICANN org published a proposed draft of the RDAP operational profile for gTLD registries and registrars for discussion with the community. These discussions took place over the next 10 months, including a public comment period.
    • In March 2015, the Web Extensible Internet Registration Data Service (WEIRDS) working group finalized the RFCs defining the Registration Data Access Protocol, a standardized replacement for WHOIS.
  • 2012
    • On 4 June 2012, ICANN org published a Roadmap for the coordination of the technical and policy discussions necessary to implement the recommendations outlined in SAC 051:
      1. improve Whois terminology to enhance and disambiguate the discussion; and
      2. replace the Whois protocol to address various technical issues (e.g., internationalization).
    • The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) chartered the WEIRDS working group to develop a protocol to replace WHOIS
  • 2011
    • On 19 September, the Security and Stability Advisory Committee issued SAC 051 [PDF, 236 KB], which advised the ICANN community to evaluate and adopt a replacement for the existing domain name registration data access protocol (WHOIS).
    • On 28 October, the ICANN Board adopted SAC 051 directing staff to produce, in consultation with the community, a roadmap for the coordination of the technical and policy discussions necessary to implement it. They also requested staff to forward SAC 051 to the Whois Review Team and ICANN's Advisory Committees and Supporting Organizations for their advice.
  • 2010
    • The ICANN community held discussions about the need for the technical evolution of the WHOIS service.
  • 1982
    • The IETF issued a protocol for a directory service for ARPANET users. This protocol has been in use ever since; it is referred to as WHOIS.

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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."