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Policy Updates

Each monthly issue of Policy Update provides the latest status of issues working their way through the bottom-up, consensus-based policy development process within ICANN. This newsletter accommodates ICANN newcomers and veterans by providing high-level explanations of a broad range of ICANN policy development activities, detailed updates on specific issues, and links to more information.

Complex policy matters require much study; and controversial issues stimulate much discussion within ICANN's multi-stakeholder community. The result: not every policy topic passes a significant milestone every month. Where there are new developments to report, Policy Update runs an article. If a matter is still progressing, but has not hit a newsworthy milestone since last month's issue of Policy Update, we provide a link to the most recent past article. This approach makes it easy for you to scan new developments, while still providing background information with one-click convenience.

Policy Update increases your access to ICANN policy information, and you can get it delivered through a free online subscription. To receive Policy Update via e-mail every month, simply visit the ICANN Subscription page, enter your e-mail address, and then select ICANN Policy Update to subscribe.

We welcome questions or comments regarding ICANN Policy Update at [email protected]

Thank you for your interest and participation in ICANN policy development.

 

2015

January | February-March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

2014

January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

2013

January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

2012

January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

2011

January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

2010

January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | December

2009

January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

2008

February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

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."