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ICANN Newsletter | Week ending 26 October 2012

News from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

Announcements This Week

Expert Recommended Improvements to ICANN's Accountability Structures

26 October 2012 | To receive comments on the recommended enhancements to ICANN's Reconsideration Process and Independent Review Process provided by the Accountability Structures Expert Panel (ASEP).

REMINDER: WHOIS Technical Requirements Survey Available Until 31 OCT 2012

25 October 2012 | Mid-September 2012 ICANN invited the community to participate in a survey about possible Technical WHOIS Requirements. If you have not reviewed the survey, or you have a saved response, the WSWG team asks that you complete the survey on or before 31 October 2012, 23:59 UTC.

IDN Variant TLD Program - Interim Report Examining the User Experience Implications of Active Variant TLDs

23 October 2012 | To receive community feedback on the interim report of the document "Examining the User Experience Implications of Active Variant TLDs."

Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy (IRTP) Part C Policy Development Process (PDP) Recommendations for Board Consideration

22 October 2012 | Obtain community input on the Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy Part C recommendations adopted by the GNSO Council prior to ICANN Board consideration.

Proposed Modification of GNSO PDP Manual to Address the Suspension of a PDP

22 October 2012 | The Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Standing Committee on Improvements Implementation (SCI) is recommending a modification of the GNSO Policy Development Process (PDP) Manual, which is an integral part of the GNSO Operating Procedures, to address the possible suspension of a PDP.

CEO to Prioritize Agreement with Registrars and Establishment of Trademark Clearing House [PDF, 200 KB]

22 October 2012 | Toronto, Canada… ICANN President and Chief Executive Officer, Fadi Chehadé says he is prioritizing efforts to reach a resolution with domain name registrars in the on-going negotiations to achieve a Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA).

Upcoming Events

7 - 11 April 2013: 46th International Public ICANN Meeting - Beijing

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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."