Skip to main content

Join us!

Registration is now open for the ICANN64 Community Forum in Kobe, Japan. The Public Meeting will take place from 9 - 14 March 2019. Look forward to seeing you there.

Click here to register.

Quicklinks

Blog Posts

ICANN Participates in the 13th Internet Governance Forum in Paris, France

ICANN at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) 2018 Plenipotentiary Conference

The Recent KSK Rollover: Summary and Next Steps

BROWSE ALL BLOG POSTS

News and Announcements

FY18 ICANN Annual Report Now Available

Thumb ar2018 microcontent icannorg 492x279

Take time to explore the FY18 Annual Report and learn about all we accomplished together. This report includes highlights of the Board, community, and org accomplishments, provides an update on the org’s progress against its objectives, and more. This report is published in accordance with ICANN Bylaw 22.3.

Governmental Advisory Committee Issues ICANN63 Communiqué

Thumb gac new 01

The Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) Communiqué from ICANN63 is available for review. Through the GAC, ICANN receives input from governments. The GAC’s key role is to give advice to ICANN on issues of public policy, especially where there may be an interaction between ICANN activities or policies and national laws or international agreements.

ICANN63 Comes to a Close

Thumb icann63close feature 01

Missed the meeting or want to catch up on sessions you didn't get to attend? Go to the ICANN63 meeting site to browse the schedule, view transcripts, watch video recordings, listen to audio recordings, and more. Visit the ICANN63 meeting site.

ICANN President and CEO Announces New Deputies

Thumb theresa jj feature 01

ICANN President and CEO Göran Marby announced his two new deputies. Congratulations to Theresa Swinehart and John Jeffrey. Learn more about the new deputies in Göran Marby's blog post.

View all

A note about our privacy policies and terms of service:

We have updated our privacy policies and certain website terms of service to provide greater transparency, promote simplification, and align with recent changes in privacy laws applicable to us. Learn more.

This site uses cookies to deliver an efficient user experience and to help us see how the site is used. Learn more.OK

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."