Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) Update

Safenames recently spoke with a representative from ICANN to get answers to the many questions that have arisen within the domain community from the announcement after the Seoul meeting that IDN.IDN had been approved and the subsequent start of the IDN application period on Novermber 16th, 2009.

 ICANN stated that it has not approved of any ccTLD registry for IDN.IDN delegation at this time.  There are presently 12 applicants that are going through “string evaluation” stage which is the initial ICANN approval process for a registry.  ICANN stated that registry approvals could come as early as the end of December, but it could take longer.  Each applicant is reviewed by the DNS Stability Panel.  If a registry meets the evalutation criteria and receives a string approval, there is also a string delegation process that must take place at IANA similar to the launch of any new ccTLD.  This means that it could take months for these new IDNs to be entered into the root.  There are presently no IDN.IDNs in the IANA root.

 The ICANN approval process has not prevented unapproved ccTLD registries from taking pre-orders and announcing sunrise dates.  ICANN has been advising registrars to be very cautious in working with companies who claim that they are the approved registries for a country’s IDN string since no company has been approved or authorized as an IDN.IDN registry by ICANN at this time. 

 In order to best serve our customers, Safenames is making the Russian IDN available for pre-order and any other IDN than we believe to be legitimate so that we can enable trademark holders to reserve their place in the sunrise queue.  However, we cannot make any guarantees on the success of a pre-order at this time.  Since ICANN has not yet approved of any specific IDN, we will proceed with great caution and be prepared for changes if the registry that we are working with is not approved or force to change their rules. 

 We will continue to communicate with our customers via the Safenames blog and our newsletter as we know more.

NeuStar, Inc. announced that it has deployed internationalized domain names (IDNs) for both the Chinese and the Japanese languages in the .BIZ top-level Internet domain. Safenames customers will be able to register .BIZ domain names using these characters as of April 21, 2007.

.BIZ IDNs enable companies worldwide to register domain names in their languages of choice. Safenames has offered .BIZ IDNs in Spanish, Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish since November 2006, and in German since 2004.

NeuStar’s Chinese and Japanese IDN offerings make available more than 19,000 Han and 178 Katakana and Hiragana characters, which are commonly used in China, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, and in Chinese and Japanese communities around the world. The complete Chinese and Japanese language tables can be found online.

For more information regarding .biz domain name registration, contact Safenames customer services or visit www.safenames.net

As of the 1st March 2004, DENIC, SWITCH and nic.at (Germany, Austria Switzerland & Liechtenstein Domain Name Registration Service) will be introducing the new IDN (Internationalised Domain Name). This standard does much more than permit umlauts. A total of 92 additional characters, from the French é to the Danish ø, will then adorn domains.

The three registries are planning to act in unison in multiplying the orthographic possibilities for domains. This switchover is going to cater for the wishes expressed by numerous users, given that the rule applicable today does not go beyond the character set needed for English and hence imposes restrictions on other languages. Eliminating these has grown into an important priority for the Internet.

Please note the characters below will now be available to be registered as a domain name (example müllers.de, jägers.at, schröders.ch ECT)

Supported characters are as follows:

à á â ã ä å a a a æ ç c c c c d d è é ê ë e e e e e ? ð g g g g h h ì í î ï i i i i i j k ? l l l l ñ n n n ò ó ô õ ö ø o o o o r r r s s s s t t t þ ù ú û ü u u u u u u w ý ÿ y z z z

For more information, contact Safenames customer services or visit www.safenames.net

As of the 1st March 2004, DeNic will be introducing the new IDN (Internationalised Domain Name). This standard does much more than permit umlauts. A total of 92 additional characters, from the French é to the Danish ø, will then adorn domains. The three registries are planning to act in unison in multiplying the orthographic possibilities for domains. This switchover is going to cater for the wishes expressed by numerous users, given that the rule applicable today does not go beyond the character set needed for English and hence imposes restrictions on other languages. Eliminating these has grown into an important priority for the Internet.

For more information regarding .de domain name registration, contact Safenames customer services or visit www.safenames.net