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ICANN Newsletter | Week ending 28 June 2013

News from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

Announcements This Week

New Registrar Accreditation Agreement Approved By ICANN Board [PDF, 145 KB]

28 June 2013 | Los Angeles, California… The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Board of Directors today approved a new Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) that is expected to bring continued improvements to the domain name ecosystem.

NGPC Progress on Addressing GAC Beijing Advice on New gTLDs

27 June 2013 | On 25 June 2013, the ICANN Board New gTLD Program Committee (NGPC) had its sixth meeting to discuss the GAC Beijing advice on New gTLDs. The Committee adopted two resolutions concerning portions of the GAC's Safeguard Advice.

ICANN's Expert Working Group Recommends WHOIS Replacement [PDF, 92 KB]

25 June 2013 | Los Angeles, California – ICANN’s Expert Working Group on gTLD Directory Services (EWG) is recommending major changes to the way registrant data is provided to users.

Draft Final Report on Universal Acceptance of IDN TLDs

25 June 2013 | The joint ccNSO-GNSO IDN working Group (JIG) seeks input from the community on its draft Final Report on Universal Acceptance of IDN TLDs.

Consultation on the Source of Policies & User Instructions for Internet Number Resource Requests

25 June 2013 | A consultation on the source of policies and user instructions for Internet Number Resource requests.

Explore the Draft Next Generation gTLD Directory Services Model

24 June 2013 | ICANN has embarked on an effort to reinvent today's WHOIS system. Be part of the solution and join the discussion…online and at ICANN's Durban meeting.

ICANN Launches Strategic Planning Portal

24 June 2013 | ICANN has launched a Strategic Planning Portal. Community input is a vital element of ICANN and the new Portal further integrates the community's feedback in shaping the future direction of ICANN and its work.

ASO AC Re-Elects Kuo Wei Wu to ICANN Board

24 June 2013 | The ASO Address Council (AC) is pleased to announce that Mr Kuo Wei Wu has been re-elected to fill Seat 10 on the ICANN Board for a three-year term.

GNSO Structures Charter Amendment Process

22 June 2013 | To solicit community feedback on a formalized process, proposed by the Board's Structural Improvements Committee (SIC), for amending GNSO Stakeholder Group and Constituency Charters.

Community-wide Working Group Completes Recommendations for Continued Use of ICANN Geographic Regions Framework

22 June 2013 | The Geographic Regions Review Working Group, a community-wide working group established by the Board, has nearly completed its work developing recommendations to the ICANN Board for the continued use of the ICANN Geographic Regions Framework.

Upcoming Events

14 - 18 July 2013: 47th International Public ICANN Meeting - Durban

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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."