Page History
Welcome to the IDN Variant TLDs Community Home Page!
This Community Wiki page is designed to provide details and historical documentation about the IDN (Internationalized Domain Name) Variant TLDs (Top-Level Domain) Issues Project (now IDN Variant TLDs Program) and to support the IDN Variant TLDs Community.
The Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) Variant TLDs Issues Project deals with the variant form of top-level domain (TLD) names in different scripts and consists of multiple projects in multiple phases.
For a brief introduction of the IDN Variant TLDs Issues Project and a summary of activities related to the first three phases of the project, please visit the IDN Variant TLDs dedicated page on the ICANN website: http://www.icann.org/en/resources/idn/variant-tlds
For further details on each phase of the project, please see the following subpages and the attachments included:
Phase 1: Case Studies (completed)
Phase 2: Integrated Issues Report (completed)
Phase 3: IDN Variant TLDs Program (Current Phase)
IDN Variant TLD Program made the following update announcement on the ICANN Website on 23 August 2012
http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-23aug12-en.htm
The IDN Variant TLD Program has the following two updates:
1. Volunteer Team formed to assist the development of the Label Generation Ruleset Process for the Domain Name System (DNS) Root Zone
2. Updated IDN Variant TLD Program posted
IDN Variant Issues Project also called IDN Variant Program
The purpose of this program is to resolve many of the issues necessary to delegate variant TLDs. The program consists of multiple projects and phases. The first IDN Variant Issues Project explored the issues associated with the potential inclusion of IDN variant TLDs in the DNS root zone, at the request of the ICANN Board and the community. The first two phases of the project have been completed with the publication of the final Integrated Issues Report on 20 February 2012 and the project is now entering its next phase.
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The program is currently in its third phase with three projects in progress following the program plan posted with an announcement on
http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-23aug12-en.htm.
Next Phase and Projects:
Upon completion of the Phase 3, and subject to ICANN Board approval, the Program will proceed to Phase 4 , which will include projects expected to focus on the implementation of IDN Variant TLDs.
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Subscribe to the vip@icann.org public mailing list for discussions on issues related to the IDN Variant TLDs Program by filling out the form available at: https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/vip. Mailing list archives are available for consultation to all interested parties.
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Background
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On 20 April 2011, ICANN announced the IDN Variant Issues Project to document the issues associated with the potential inclusion of IDN variant TLDs in the DNS root zone. This project was initiated in response to a 2010 ICANN Board of Directors resolution.
Phase I involved the formation of six case study teams for the Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Greek and Latin scripts. These teams were comprised of community experts with support by ICANN and identified issues related to IDN variant TLDs for each particular script, resulting in the publication in October of six individual reports detailing the findings of each script team.
Phase II of the project focused on integrating those six case study reports into the Integrated Issues Report. To complete this phase, ICANN formed a coordination team comprised of experts from each of the case study teams. The coordination team advised ICANN in completing the Integrated Issues Report, which summarizes and categorizes the various issues related to the identification and management of IDN variant TLDs.
On 23 December 2011, ICANN published for public comment the draft Integrated Issues Report. Following the public comment period, ICANN published a Summary and Analysis of comments received and the final Integrated Issues Report.
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Document and Resource Links
IDN Variant TLD Program Plan [PDF, 576 KB]
Final Integrated Issues Report [PDF, 2.15 MB]
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