IDN TLDs: pre-registrations, declined requests, and other misconceptions
Recent statements and speculations have been made concerning the IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process and related issues. People seem to be most concerned about:

• ICANN denying some countries/territories access to the Fast Track Process
• ICANN approving IDN ccTLDs
• The notion of pre-registrations in new TLDs

This blog post is intended to set the record straight on these matters.

Is ICANN denying access to the Fast Track Process?
Let me be very clear: The Fast Track Process for submitting requests for IDN ccTLD strings is available to all eligible countries and territories. Statements like ICANN has refused IDN ccTLDs to some countries are incorrect. ICANN encourages eligible countries and territories to participate in the process and submit their IDN ccTLD requests.

This is an exciting new opportunity for Internet users around the world, and we would like to see as many users being served by these new initiatives as possible and as are deemed useful.

ICANN also has a support function in place at idncctldrequest@icann.org for interested parties.

So far, ICANN has received 17 requests encompassing 10 languages. These numbers will be updated from time to time at http://icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/.

To comply with the confidentiality requirements of the process, ICANN cannot disclose any additional information. We cannot state whether a particular request has been received, or how far along the process a request is. We understand that the public has a great deal of interest in potential future IDN ccTLDs, and therefore some requesting entities have elected to publicly disclose information about their requests.

However, the only time ICANN can make information available about a request is after it successfully passes the String Evaluation step.

What strings are ‘approved’ and what does it mean?
Four IDN ccTLD strings were recently announced as successfully completing the String Evaluation step of the Fast Track Process. These requests are associated with Egypt, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The full announcement is here: http://icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-21jan10-en.htm.

However, passing the String Evaluation step is not the same as saying that ICANN approved these TLDs. These four entities must go through the final step in the Fast Track Process – String Delegation. The String Delegation step must be initiated by the respective country or territory, and that can only be done with requests that have successfully met the String Evaluation criteria. String Delegation follows the same ICANN IANA process that is used for ASCII-based ccTLDs, and thus String Delegation requests are submitted to IANA root zone management.

Only after String Delegation takes place will these TLDs be in the DNS root zone, and only then can resolutions requests against them be performed. In other words, this is when domains can be registered and used.

Has ICANN authorized pre-registration of TLD domain names?
ICANN has not authorized pre-registration of domain names in any potential future TLDs.

The reason is simple: There is no way to be sure that a certain string will become a TLD and hence available for domain name registration until all steps in the associated evaluation and delegation processes are successfully completed.

ICANN has previously posted warnings concerning speculative pre-registrations, and those warnings are still informative. You can review them at http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/icann-pr29sep00.htm

As of February 1st 2010 registration of domain names with special characters in them, like for example a letter with an accent, called Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) .lu will be possible. Acceptable special caracters are those communly used in Luxembourgish, German and French languages.

There will be a two months sunrise period between February 1^st 2010 and March 31^st 2010. During this sunrise period owners of registered .lu names will be able to register the identical names with special caracters. After this sunrise period beginning April 1^st 2010 IDN registrations will be open for everybody and performed on a “first-come, first-served basis”.

The allowed character for IDN will be those necessary for Luxemburgish, French or German. Besides the currently accepted caracters (a-z, 0-9, – (hyphen)) these are:

• U+00E4 Latin small letter a with diaeresis (ä)
• U+00F6 Latin small letter o with diaeresis (ö)
• U+00FC Latin small letter u with diaeresis (ü)
• U+00E0 Latin small letter a with grave (à)
• U+00E2 Latin small letter a with circumflex (â)
• U+00E6 Latin small letter ae (æ)
• U+00E7 Latin small letter c with cedilla (ç)
• U+00E8 Latin small letter e with grave (è)
• U+00E9 Latin small letter e with acute (é)
• U+00EA Latin small letter e with circumflex (ê)
• U+00EB Latin small letter e with diaeresis (ë)
• U+00EE Latin small letter i with circumflex (î)
• U+00EF Latin small letter i with diaeresis (ï)
• U+00F4 Latin small letter o with circumflex (ô)
• U+00F9 Latin small letter u with grave (ù)
• U+00FB Latin small letter u with circumflex (û)
• U+0153 Latin small ligature oe (œ)

The domain names eligible during the sunrise period are those derived from an existing domain name by replacing one or more characters with the same base character with a diacritic, or by applying the general replacement convention (e.g. ü=ue).

Mapping table:

• a: à, â, ä
• c: ç
• e: é, è, ê, ë
• i: î, ï
• o: ô, ö
• u: ù, û, ü
• ae: æ, ä
• oe: œ, ö
• ue: ü

An IDN must be registered to the same holder (same name, same address) as the similar ASCII domain name. The registrar does not have to be the same for both names. Trade of IDNs registered during the sunrise period will be blocked until the end of the sunrise (March 31^st).

Removal of the obligation of the administrative contact to be established in Luxembourg

As of February 1^st 2010 domain name holders which are established outside Luxembourg are not no longer obliged to give valid power of attorney to an agent established in Luxembourg for the registration and the management of their domain name.

Removal of the reservation of domain names of Luxembourg municipality and village names on behalf of local authorities

As of January 1^st 2011 domain names containing the name of any Luxembourg municipality or village name will become available to any interested party independent of its nationality and residence. Domain names belonging to this category remain reserved for local administration until January 1^st 2011.

Opening of registration of Temporary blocked domain names

Domain names which have been rejected under former registration policies and which have been identified as Temporary blocked domain names, will become available for registration during 2010. Details of the registration process, as well as the date of release will be published in due time.

Luxembourg .lu domain names rank amongst the most secure in the world

The .lu domain is one of the world’s securest top-level domains (TLD). That is the conclusion of an annual survey by US security software company McAfee. Luxembourg ranks on the 2nd position among the 27 EU countries, just behind Ireland. Luxembourg domain is 4th among worldwide country domains tested, where Japan (.jp) is the safest country domain globally, Ireland’s .ie domain came second, followed by Croatia (.hr) and Luxembourg (.lu). McAfee checked out more than 5.750 .lu websites to arrive at the rating. Cameroon (cm) is the least secure domain worldwide. The risk of being infected by a computer virus when surfing is 69,7 percent when visiting a website from Cameroon (.cm). In Luxembourg, by contrast, it is only 0,3 percent. Of all the websites tested worldwide, 5.8 percent are rated as insecure.

“It is reassuring to see .lu in the upper part of the worldwide security level”, said Antoine Barthel, managing director of RESTENA Foundation which operates the .lu registry DNS-LU. “McAfee’s findings confirm that our continuous efforts and investments to make the .lu domain one of the most secure produce outstanding performances”.

You can download McAfee’s document (at McAfee)

The first four IDN ccTLD requests has just been announced as having completed the String Evaulation portion of the Fast Track Process.

These are associated with: Egypt, the Russian Federation, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.

See the full announcement here: http://icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-21jan10-en.htm

So what does that mean?

It means that these may now initiate the String Delegation process, which is the last step before the strings are actually in the DNS root zone and hence available for use.

The remaining 12 requests are still being processed and at ICANN we are very much looking forward to completing more requests as well as receiving additional new requests

Overall, the Fast Track Process has three main steps:

1) Preparation (by the requester in the country / territory). Community consensus is built for which IDN ccTLD to apply for, how it is run, and which organization will be running it, along with preparing and gathering all the required supporting documentation.

2) String Evaluation: incoming requests to ICANN in accordance with the criteria described above: the technical and linguistic requirements for the IDN ccTLD string(s). Applications are received through an online system available together with additional material supporting the process at http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/

3) String Delegation: requests successfully meeting string evaluation criteria are eligible to apply for delegation following the same ICANN IANA process as is used for ASCII based ccTLDs. String delegation requests are submitted to IANA root zone management.

The IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process was launched on 16 November 2009. As of that date eligible countries and territories were able to request their respective IDN ccTLD(s) through the process.

The process entails three steps: (i) Preparations in country/territory (ii) String Evaluation, and (iii) String Delegation.

All steps are described in detail in the Final Implementation Plan [PDF, 498K].

The IDN ccTLDs and associated details listed in the below table represent those IDN ccTLD requests that have successfully completed Step 2: String Evaluation.

• The primary string(s) represent the string that the requester now may seek for IDN ccTLD delegation.
• The desired variant string(s) are strings allocated to the requester. This does not mean that they will be delegated in the DNS root zone. They will be allocated to the requester in order to be reserved to the entitled manager for potential future delegation in the DNS root zone.

The corresponding countries and territories are hence free to enter Step 3: String Delegation, for the listed primary string(s).

ICANN is pleased to announce the successful completion of the IDN ccTLD Fast Track String Evaluation for four (4) proposed IDN ccTLDs. The requests are associated with: Egypt, the Russian Federation, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. Details of the successful evaluations are provided here.

The IDN (Internationalised Domain Name) ccTLD Fast Track Process was approved by the ICANN Board at its annual meeting in Seoul, South Korea on 30 October 2009. First requests were received starting 16 November 2009. The process enables countries and territories to submit requests to ICANN for IDN ccTLDs, representing their respective country or territory names in scripts other than Latin. IDN ccTLD requesters must fulfil a number of requirements:

• the script used to represent the IDN ccTLDs must be non-Latin;
• the languages used to express the IDN ccTLDs must be official in the corresponding country or territory; and
• a specific set of technical requirements must be met (as evaluated by an external DNS Stability Panel comprised of DNS and IDN experts).

The request and evaluation processes entail three steps:

1. Preparation (by the requester in the country / territory). Community consensus is built for which IDN ccTLD to apply for, how it is run, and which organization will be running it, along with preparing and gathering all the required supporting documentation.
2. String Evaluation: incoming requests to ICANN in accordance with the criteria described above: the technical and linguistic requirements for the IDN ccTLD string(s). Applications are received through an online system available together with additional material supporting the process at http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/
3. String Delegation: requests successfully meeting string evaluation criteria are eligible to apply for delegation following the same ICANN IANA process as is used for ASCII based ccTLDs. String delegation requests are submitted to IANA root zone management.

At this time ICANN has received a total of 16 requests for and IDN ccTLD through the String Evaluation process, representing eight languages. Four of these have now successfully passed through the String Evaluation and are hence ready for the requesting country or territory to initiate the application for String Delegation.

ICANN is looking forward to the String Delegation function for these four requests, as well as finalizing the remaining received requests in String Evaluation, and receiving additional new requests in the Fast Track Process. A staff support function is available to help all countries and territories interested in participating in the Fast Track Process. Please email idncctldrequests@icann.org for any inquiries for participation.

Updates about received numbers of applications and the number of completions will continue to be provided on the Fast Track Process web page at http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/

Press Release: http://www.icann.org/en/news/releases/release-21jan10-en.pdf [PDF, 36K]

HKIRC announced that ‘.香港’ registrations will be offered free to all ‘.hk’ customers in the second half of 2010 with the aim of helping them develop their sites with full Chinese domain names.  This is to increase the popularity of Chinese domain names and to maximize benefits to the Internet community, and ultimately to sustain the status of Hong Kong as a digital city.
HKIRC has rigorously planned and submitted an application to administer ‘.香港’ since the approval of the Internationalized Domain Name Country Code Top Level Domains (IDNccTLDs), at a meeting held by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in Seoul.

Mr Jonathan Shea, CEO of HKIRC said: “The objective of HKIRC is to provide ‘.hk’ registration services and promote usage of the Internet.  Through the timely introduction of ‘.香港’ domain, Chinese and English domain names will become complementary to each other, fostering the growth of the Internet community as well as leveraging on the market potential of the huge Chinese-speaking population of one billion-plus.  The introduction can also cater for the demands of the local users who prefer to use their own dialect.

According to a survey conducted by the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC), over 60% of netizens feel that domains in local dialects can help people to search sites, and are useful for promotion.  Moreover, over 55% of domain users said localized domains could help to extend the influence of mainland brands on the Internet.  Since a number of Chinese netizens expressed support for the opening of IDN registrations, it is estimated that the majority of the current 180,000 ‘.hk’ users will register a Chinese ‘.香港’ domain in the future.

The local community is keenly anticipating and supporting the introduction of ccTLD ‘.香港’. A number of enquiries have been received from corporations, organisations, small-and-medium enterprises, and reputable brands such as Sino Group, Lung Wah (龍華乳鴿), and the creative online exchange platform Anyidea.hk, which are looking forward to using ‘.香港’ domain to showcase the quality and creative branding of Hong Kong to explore further business opportunities.

Speedy Group, one of HKIRC’s industry partners, also welcomes the release of ‘.香港’. Speedy Group has said that the new measures will change the domain name market dominated by English, and that ‘.香港’ will eliminate language obstacles and help explore new market potential.

”After the ‘.香港’ introduction, existing English or Chinese ‘.hk’ domain name holders will soon be able to use full Chinese characters in web names.  It is expected that most of the applications will be submitted by corporate brands, government departments, not-for-profit organisations and small-and-medium enterprises, as well as for generic domain names like flower shop, food and garment.  We look forward to accelerating and promoting Internet adoption and development, ultimately solidifying the status of Hong Kong as a leading digital city,” added Mr. Shea.

Seeking Next Treasured .com Name Overseas

NEW YORK, New York, January 11, 2010 /PRNewswire/ — Domain name investors, having exhausted most of the possibilities in the U.S. are now heading overseas to stake their claims to as-yet unused domain categories. And language is not a barrier. With the Internet a truly global tool, not only are domain names in Japanese characters (i.e. [Japanese].com) now available to register, but according to a recent statement by Chuck Gomes at Verisign, soon owners of foreign .com names will be able to unlock an extension instead of dot com that is in a corresponding foreign script, such as www.[Japanese]dot[Japanese].

A foreign language domain name is known as an IDN, which stands for “Internationalized Domain Name.” Domain name investors who have struck it rich from buying and flipping domain names years ago in the .com gold rush are now buying thousands of IDNs in languages such as Chinese, Russian and Japanese. While English domain names such as business.com (sold for $360 million) and vodka.com (sold for $3 million) have brought very high returns on investment, investors see a similar future for the developing IDN domain market, which has not yet peaked.

Aaron Krawitz and Gary Males, founders of IDNTools.com have built careers by catering to such IDN investors. Their company’s most popular service is an IDN droplist http://www.idndroplist.com , which lists all previously owned domains that are expiring and becoming available that day. The logic for subscribing to such a droplist is that formerly owned domains were once bought because they hold value, and therefore, it is helpful for an investor to know which previously purchased IDNs are becoming available.

“Droplist subscribers have been able to purchase premium IDNs for pennies on the dollar,” Males said, “as dropped names have included premium terms such as ‘work’, ’shopping’, ‘medicine’ and ‘real estate.’”

Krawitz stated, “I have always wished I could have been there in the 1990s to buy up .com’s while they were undervalued and I believe that an equivalent opportunity exists today for IDNs.” With the Internet expanding into foreign markets rapidly, and for all those who believe that the Internet will continue to broaden its reach — IDN investing is attracting a much wider market than previously.

As of February 1st 2010 registration of domain names with special characters in them, like for example a letter with an accent, called Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) .lu will be possible. Acceptable special caracters are those communly used in Luxembourgish, German and French languages.

There will be a two months sunrise period between February 1^st 2010 and March 31^st 2010. During this sunrise period owners of registered .lu names will be able to register the identical names with special caracters. After this sunrise period beginning April 1^st 2010 IDN registrations will be open for everybody and performed on a “first-come, first-served basis”.

Businesses and consumers can look forward to using Chinese characters in their website address to better reach their customers or friends who prefer Chinese web addresses. The Singapore Network Information Centre (SGNIC), the national registry for domain names.

This opens up new options for domain names, as anyone can soon register for Web addresses such as .sg so that their target market or audience can better identify with them. SGNIC will offer these Chinese domain names at both 2nd and 3rd levels in all categories (namely, .sg, .com.sg, .gov.sg, .org.sg, .edu.sg, .net.sg, .per.sg). For instance, a 2nd level domain name would be .sg, while a 3rd level domain name would read as .com.sg.

SGNIC General Manager Lim Choon Sai said “SGNIC hopes to give users greater choices and also add to the range of domain names available here. We believe this is timely given the growing interest, especially among businesses here, to reach the Chinese markets, which may feel more comfortable using their own language.”

The launch of Chinese domain names follows a slew of new domain name choices offered here in the past two years, including the release of single-character and pure numeric domain names. Other countries, especially where English is not the primary language such as China, Japan and South Korea, have started using domain names in their primary languages. SGNIC will continue to monitor market demand and developments and consider offering domain names in other languages.

Registration of Chinese domain names will be phased according to the schedule below, with single-character Chinese domain names, such as .sg and numeric domain names in Chinese such as .sg to be available for a premium during the first three phases of registration:

1. Phase 1: Government Agencies (23 Nov 2009 – 31 Dec 2009)
2. Phase 2: For Trademark holders (7 Jan 2010 – 18 Feb 2010)
   • Multiple applications will be subject to bidding.
   • TM holders need to be registered with the Intellectual Property of Singapore (IPOS). Service marks will not be eligible.
3. Phase 3: For All (25 Mar 2010 – 6 May 2010)
   • Multiple applications will be subject to bidding.
   • All entities may apply but will be subject to a priority fee.
4. General Launch (10 Jun 2010 onwards)
   • All entities may apply.

Please refer to www.sgnic.sg for more details.