Archive for the ‘ICANN Blog’ Category

Russian IDN ccTLD .рф Opens for Registrations, Makes History

November 11, 2010, marked the day when the new IDN ccTLD .рф (Cyrillic for Российская Федерация, Russian Federation) was opened for general registration. Prior to that date the registration was open only for trademark owners and governmental institutions. Before the registration started, in an interview for the КоммерсантЪ (Commersant) daily, Andrey Kolesnikov, CEO of the […]

Tina Dam: IDN Usability

Internationalized Domain Names and the usability of them is a key aspect of the ongoing introduction of IDN ccTLDs. ICANN is actively taking part in conferences and events, with a focus on applications and usability of new technology on the Internet. This is to spread information about IDNs and how they work in order to […]

First IDN ccTLDs now available

Today the first three production non-Latin top-level domains were placed in the DNS root zone. This means they are live! Here is one newly enabled domain with a functional website that works right now: وزارة-الأتصالات.مصر If your software does not have full IDN support, this might not work exactly as expected. You may see a […]

IDN ccTLD Delegations approved by ICANN

This is a very brief blog post with quite the big content. Last week was a special week at ICANN, with several IDN milestones meet. Many were included in the 22 April 2010 ICANN Board meeting. The ICANN Board approved the first IDN ccTLD delegation requests for four countries. These countries are: Egypt, the Russian […]

Tina Dam: Clearing the Confusion (Fast Track)

Since the launch of the Fast Track Process, ICANN has received many questions about how the DNS Stability Panel will determine a confusingly similar string; that is, a requested string that is confusing similar with an existing ccTLD, gTLD or applied-for TLDs. The overall rules seem clear: 1) If you apply for an IDN ccTLD […]

Tina Dam: Community Support for IDN ccTLDs

One area of the IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process about which questions have arisen is community support for the IDN ccTLD and how such support can be demonstrated. I have provided some clarification here that I hope is helpful to present and future IDN ccTLD Fast Track participants. None of this information replaces or changes […]

Tina Dam: IDN TLDs pre-registrations, declined requests, etc

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 […]

Tina Dam: First 4 IDN ccTLDs through String Evaulation

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 […]

Tina Dam: 4 days in the Fast Track Process

Just a brief message to keep you up to date. As of 00:00 UTC today – 4 days after the launch of the Fast Track Process we have new requests coming in. The total number is 10 requests. They spread over 5 different languages. Details about the process is at: http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/ Please keep asking questions. […]

Tina Dam: Fast Track Status Update

The IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process was successfully launched, as planned on 16 November 2009. It was done at exactly 00:00UTC with a very joyful count-down by the Fast Track Staff Team – followed by a wooohooo The launch went smoothly. We have since monitored the system and everything is working. As of 10pm Pacific […]