Following yesterday’s big news [http://icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-05may10-en.htm] with the introduction of the first IDN ccTLDs we thought it was a good time to provide an update to where the Fast Track Process is. IDN ccTLDs in the DNS root zone: Egypt: مصر (Egypt) Saudi Arabia: السعودية (AlSaudiah) United Arab Emirates: امارات (Emarat) – in addition Russian Federation: [...]

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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 What you should be seeing is something like the following: It even works on a mobile phone: The three new [...]

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This blog post is primarily intended to update the many people in the technical community and ccTLD community about activities related to Synchronized IDN ccTLDs. As you may know, one of the ICANN Board resolutions from the recent ICANN meeting in Nairobi directed staff to develop an extension to the Fast Track Process: a mechanism [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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. [...]

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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 [...]

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