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ICANN's Technical Study Group on New gTLD Integrations with Alternative Naming Systems

The global Domain Name System (DNS) is the standard naming system for the Internet, but it is not the only naming system on the Internet. Several current registry operators and potential 2026 Round applicants have indicated that they would like to offer registry services that associate some other naming system with the global DNS, using the same name in both systems in order to integrate them. The TSG will conduct an in-depth analysis to understand the potential security and stability ramifications of integrating generic top-level domains (gTLDs) with alternative naming systems.

Meet the Technical Study Group:

ICANN staff will facilitate this effort.

Supporting Documentation and Resources:

Announcements and Blogs:

Date Description
9 June 2026 Blog: New gTLD Integrations with Alternative Naming Systems Technical Study Group Underway
27 April 2026 Blog: Technical Study Group Forming: gTLD Integrations with Alternative Naming Systems

Meetings and Work Session Resources:

Date Description
2 June 2026

TSG on New gTLD Integrations with Alternative Naming Systems – Formal Kick-off Meeting – Meeting #1
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."