Nov 3, 2000 : Internationalized Domain Names

Workshop atICANN Annual Meeting (13 November)

For several months, a workinggroup of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has beenworking to develop a standard specifying the requirements forinternationalized access to domain names. This standard, whenit is completed, will extend the operation of the Internet'sDomain Name System (DNS) to character sets other than ASCII (theonly character set currently supported) such as Arabic, Chinese,Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, the Scandanavian languages, andSpanish.

Several experimental testbeds are in operationor have been announced. These testbeds are testing a varietyof approaches under consideration by the IETF working group,but are part of a common commitment to converge on whatever standardsolution is ultimately adopted.

These developments, which could bring verysignificant changes to the way the DNS can be used, have attractedremarkably little public notice. To help explain the status ofthese efforts and their potential effects (both positive andnegative) and to increase public awareness, ICANN will sponsora workshop on internationalized domain names on Monday, 13 November2000, in conjunction with its annual meeting in Marina del Rey,California. The meeting is planned to take place at 10:30 amin the Santa Monica Room of the Marina Beach Hotel. (For detailson the ICANN annual meeting, please see <https://www.icann.org/mdr2000/>.)

The workshop will begin with a presentationon the status of the efforts of the IETF Internationalized DomainNames working group, followed by brief talks by several companiesworking toward implementation of internationalized domain names,including i-DNS.net, VerisignGlobal Registry Services, and the MultilingualInternet Names Consortium. After these presentations, therewill be an open discussion and questions will be taken from thepress and public.

Beginningof Registrations in Verisign Testbed (10 November)

The workshop will be held just three daysafter one of the testbeds begins taking registrations of namesin the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean character sets. VerisignGlobal Registry Services has announced that it will begin takingregistrations beginning at 00:00 UTC on Friday, 10 November 2000,of names consisting of the multilingual (Unicode) characterslisted at <http://verisign-grs.com/multilingual/unicode.html>.(A graphic presentation of the listed characters can be foundat <http://www.unicode.org/charts/>.)Approximately twenty ICANN-accredited registrars are expectedto participate, offering registrations in competition with oneanother. The testbed plan is to have the registered names becomeoperational after several weeks in which only registrations willbe taken.