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ICANN Press Releases | 2026

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2026 | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022

Press Release: ICANN86 Policy Forum Brings Global Internet Community to Seville

Brussels – 28 May 2026

Press Release: ICANN Announces Next Major Internet Security Update

Los Angeles – 20 May 2026

Press Release: ICANN Opens Application Window for New Generic Top-Level Domains

LOS ANGELES – 30 April 2026

ICANN85 in Mumbai Highlights Collaboration to Strengthen a Secure and Resilient Internet

Mumbai, INDIA – 9 March 2026

ICANN Launches Universal Acceptance Curriculum Program, Facilitating a Multilingual Internet

24 February 2026

Press Release: ICANN CEO Highlights 2026 Domain Expansion Opportunities During Türkiye Visit

ISTANBUL – 19 February 2026

Press Release: ICANN85 in Mumbai: Strengthening the Single, Interoperable Internet for All

New Delhi, INDIA – 5 February 2026

Press Release: ICANN Nominating Committee Seeks Accomplished Business Leaders for ICANN Board of Directors

LOS ANGELES – 28 January 2026

Press Release: ICANN Launches Caribbean Premiere of ICANN Near You in Guyana

MONTEVIDEO – 28 January 2026

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."