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ICANN released today a statement outlining a proposal by the President's Committee on IDNs (co-chaired by Hualin Qian, Mouhamet Diop and Paul Twomey) for a timetable leading to the technical testing of IDNs at the TLD level. The timetable contains a series of consultations and collaborations to ensure that the testing, when launched, will preserve DNS stability and security. It does not purport to be a presumption on any related policy issues which are in the preview of the ICANN policy bodies. The timetable calls for the start of testing in July 2006.

The single interoperable Internet is based on a shared namespace originating in a single root. This ensures that all users of the global Internet have a platform on which they can communicate with each other. The geographic extent of the Internet is constantly expanding, with a corresponding increase in its use by the diverse linguistic groups of the world. Content reflecting this linguistic diversity has long been available online. There is a need to continue supporting multilingual access to the Internet. This is a necessary step in realizing the full potential of the Internet for serving as a global communications platform.

One challenge in implementing multilingualism on the Internet is the preparation of content in the numerous languages, alphabets, scripts, and character sets that must be accommodated. There is also a need to deal with these same factors in the development of keyword, search, and directory systems. Finally, this all needs to be reflected in the Domain Name System ("DNS") which underlies all resource identification, even if specific concern with domain names is only a fraction of the total multilingualism issue.

ICANN takes all issues related to internationalization very seriously. In relation to its mission, the implementation of internationalized domain names ("IDNs") is of utmost importance. An IDN is a domain name that contains characters from non-Latin scripts, or includes the use of accents and diacritical marks with Latin characters.

ICANN has already established guidelines for the introduction of IDN on the second level of the DNS [for example, the ICANN portion of www.icann.org]. In addition, the Internet community and ICANN have collaboratively appointed a group of leading experts to a President's Advisory Committee on IDNs.

This committee is preparing a proposal for a technical test of internationalized top level domain labels. Representatives from all regions of the world are taking part in the discussion of the technical test and have agreed that the stability and security of the DNS which supports the Internet as we know it today will have the highest priority. It is for this reason that due diligence is being applied and that technical testing is to take place.

Full text of this announcement is available on ICANN's website.

See related topics: DNS, Domain Names, Domain Registries, Multilinguism, Top-Level Domains

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