It turned out they needed less than three hours to reach to the 100,000 domain names! Such a gold rush was not expected, and numbers continued to grow – 200,000 within 6 hours from the beginning of the registration period. And more than 460,000 by today.

The registration process, which clearly exceeded (and continues to exceed) all expectation, includes some interesting details, for example there is a list of 4023 words, which are not allowed for registration. The so-called “black list” contains variations of all different vulgar words, known in the Russian language. However, users have already found ways to bypass it, with simply adding another word in front, or after the blacklisted words.

We’ll be waiting to hear more on the history and the development of the Russian IDN ccTLD during the ICANN meeting in Cartagena, where several of the Russian ccTLD top management people will be present.
And we’ll prepare a posting on that topic, with more details for the general public. We hope that these details might be helpful in the launch of other new TLDs.

There are hundred of publications in the Russian central media, and even more all over the web, with people sharing opinions about who might be these registrants, why there are so many domains registered, and what does the fact of so many domains mean for the Russian Internet. It will be also interesting to see in exactly one year how many of these domains will be renewed. But certainly the Russian IDN ccTLD has made history.

More on the Russian ccTLD Coordination Center here (in Russian).

More on the ICANN IDN program here.

Interesting background information
The Cyrillic IDN ccTLD started as an idea, discussed during the meeting of the Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov with his Russian colleague President Vladimir Putin on January 18, 2008 in Sofia, Bulgaria. The Bulgarian President’s office published last week the transcript from that meeting. Asked by President Putin, the Russian foreign minister responds, “As for the usage of Cyrillic in the Internet, our experts have already reviewed these issues, we have contacts with the international structures [ICANN], now we are solving the technical questions and the contacts between our specialists on that issue, of course, will confirm our commitment that Cyrillic should be used in the domain names. As for the consultations, as a whole, we are very happy from our cooperation [between Russia, Bulgaria, and ICANN].”

UPDATE FROM November 18, 2010:
As of today, November 18, the number of domains in .рф (.rf IDN ccTLD) passed half a million. As the Coordination Center announced, the 500000th domain registered was металлоконструкции74.рф (xn--74-6kctqamahahrlb5apjiu5d.xn--p1ai – in puny-code). This number brings .рф on 17th place among all European domains. Domains, which were delegated, or a working, account to more than 162,000. Most of them are already used in advertising, not only as single words, but as whole phrases, which are easy for the Russian speaker to understand.

Since I was quoted briefly in the article, I’d like to share some additional thoughts.

Why so much Public Comment?

Public Comment periods are vital in satisfying ICANN’s goal to be a bottom-up multi-stakeholder policy making body and to provide openness and transparency in its policy development processes. An ICANN core value is to employ open and transparent mechanisms in policy development processes. Such openness promotes well-informed decisions, and ensures that people affected by a new policy can participate and assist in the policy’s formation. That’s why the Bylaws mandate public comment periods (for example, see Annex A, Sections 6 and 9).

The Affirmation of Commitments reflects the same principles, calling for ICANN to provide transparent and fact-based policy development, cross-community deliberations, and responsive consultation procedures. In the Affirmation, ICANN committed to provide detailed explanations of the basis for decisions — including how comments have influenced policy considerations.

Thus, the desire to hear all voices on each policy issue comes right from ICANN’s core. Frankly, we don’t want to limit public comments.

Is ICANN handling too many policy processes at the same time?

The answer is “No!” as soon as you consider the alternatives.

Three Supporting Organizations and a number of Advisory Committees can bring policy issues before the community. To which of them would we say, “Sorry, too busy to care about your issue; check back later”? Obviously, none of them.

An ICANN policy development process takes time to gather all viewpoints. Imagine how long it would take ICANN to address your particular policy issue if there were an arbitrary limit. If the ICANN community only handles seven or ten issues at once, that means all other issues remain parked indefinitely, probably for months. Notable achievements from this year, such as IDNs and DNSSEC going into the root, might still be waiting to happen. Do we want to slow our processes? Obviously, no. (Improve and prioritize better? Yes, indeed!)

Andrew reports that “some people” believe there are too many simultaneous policy issues pending, and are worried (with some justification) about overload in our volunteer community. This perception may be due to several factors, including:

• Our list of open issues initially looks confusing because issues have not been prioritized. The GNSO is about halfway through creating a method for prioritizing projects. Ranking their relative importance will help make them easier to take in all at once.
• Many policy-related reports exceed 100 pages. The GNSO has recently resolved that its reports should begin with an Executive Summary. This will help reduce the reading an individual has to do in deciding whether to comment.
• Our large, diverse volunteer community is avid and committed to follow the growing number of policy issues that reflects the increased global impact of the Internet.

We will also be examining the processes and mechanisms we use to manage the public comment process in hopes of identifying more effective and efficient ways to publicize, collect and organize community comments.

Policy development has an ebb and flow. Recently, we seem to be at high tide. Some of the tide will ebb when the new gTLD program launches and GNSO Improvements Initiative winds down. Five working groups will go away (one already has). Optimistically, the bulk of the GNSO improvements effort may be completed in early 2011.

We shouldn’t set an arbitrary limit to the number of issues evaluated by the ICANN Community. The issues arise from the community, and staff works diligently to support that work. We all recognize that many issues are both important and urgent to different parts of the ICANN community. I do not believe that ICANN is handling too many policy issues.

The ICANN community is also working hard to enhance our collective management of so many important issues, which is not always easy. Yet, if the current situation seems difficult, consider the alternative: Further delays in improvements to WHOIS.  The 65% of Internet users who do not speak English await IDNs in their own languages. Communities still waiting more years for their new gTLDs. Phishers continue defrauding consumers using techniques that DNSSEC can stop. If we must err, it is better for ICANN to handle too much, than for ICANN to handle too little.

Chinese:
With one billion people around the world using Chinese as their primary language, it means that one out of every five people on the planet can have benefit from the introduction of the newly approved Chinese extensions:

• .中国 and .中國 – CNNIC – the China Internet Network Information Center http://www.cnnic.cn

• .香港 – HKIRC – Hong Kong Internet Registration Corporation Limited http://www.hkirc.hk

• .台灣 and .台湾- TWNIC – Taiwan Network Information Center http://www.twnic.tw

This is also the first time that variants are allowed at top-level domains or extensions for the Internet. For CNNIC and TWNIC they each have two variants approved for delegation. Both organizations have over a decade in variant operational experience, and have published implementation plans that describe how the variants are to be managed. We hope to get some good experience in these launches that can be used generally for TLD variant management and help us make this available for others as well.

At lot of people are of course asking the obvious question: when will we be able to make registrations and what are the registration rules? They should be available shortly, but please go to the respective organization for the IDN ccTLD management for more details about registration rules, launches and timelines.

At the ICANN meeting in Brussels, where the ICANN Board approval took place on 25 June 2010, it was followed by a CDNC event. Everybody celebrated the newly approved Chinese IDN ccTLDs, with music and food – pictures to come.

Singapore and Syria:
This month’s IDN ccTLD string evaluation completions included Singapore and Syria, with:

Syrian Arab Republic: سورية (Arabic)
Singapore: 新加坡 and சிங்கப்பூர் (Chinese and Tamil)

This means that the two organizations now can submit their requests to have these strings delegated as new top-level domains for use in the Internet.

IDN ccTLD Fast Track Status:
All in all we have now received 31 requests for IDN ccTLDs from countries and territories. Together they represent 19 languages. Details can be found at: http://icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/string-evaluation-completion-en.htm

A delegation from ICANN, headed by President and CEO Rod Beckstrom and including Barbara Clay, Tina Dam and Veni Markovski, was in Moscow on a 3-day visit, and participated actively in a number of events (in time order):

- A meeting at the Institute for Information Security Issues (IISI) – the organization that has signed an MoU with ICANN and that is organizing the Garmisch Meeting on Security*. Col.-Gen. Sherstyuk** discussed with ICANN opportunities for further cooperation in the field of internet security.

- Visit to former Soviet President M.S. Gorbachev – the conversation covered a number of issues, not only related to the Internet, and gave us the opportunity to explain the development of the IDN ccTLD, and the gTLD policies. Mr. Gorbachev was particularly impressed by his guests’ remarks about his role in changing the history of Eastern Europe, and the freedom and opportunities this brought to the whole world.

- Rod gave five exclusive interviews, including Reuters and four major Russian media. The Reuters interview was published in many media in countries all over the world, and in Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, French, etc. Some of the Russian language pieces could be found here: Rossiiskaya gazeta, Chastnii korrespondent, and Computerra, and some of the English langauge ones are at Radio Free Europe, and at RT (watch the video there).

Russian Internet Governance Forum and official Launch of the Russian .рф IDN ccTLD
The Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications and the Russian ccTLD Coordination Center organized a great Internet Governance Forum – IGF. The Coordination Center arranged an amazing list of speakers, proving that they are indeed a professional registry, with great staff and leadership.

At the opening of the Forum, the Russian Minister of Communications, Igor Schegolev, praised ICANN for the work it has done, and Rod delivered a special plaque to Andrei Kolesnikov (attached), CEO of the Coordination Center for .ru ccTLD, to confirm the Center was approved as the operator of the new .рф Cyrillic IDN ccTLD.
The opening session included Rod’s keynote address and speeches by Larry Strickling, Col.-Gen. Sherstyuk, Chuck Gomes (GNSO), Chris Disspain (ccNSO), Wolfgang Kleinwachter (NomCom) as well as Russian politicians and businessmen. A full recording (MP3) could be downloaded from the site of the organizers (110 Mb)
here was a VIP lunch, given by the Minister for the top Russian and US officials*** and the ICANN delegation. With lots of greetings, and in a cheerful atmosphere, the lunch allowed informal communication to take place.
Later that day Rod participated in a panel discussion on security, sharing the stage with cyber experts from CISCO, Kaspersky, Lille University, the Russian Parliament, and others.

ICANN’s press activities for these two days produced stories in more than 100 publications, all of them positive about ICANN and the IDN ccTLD program.

But that was not all – IDN “guru” Tina Dam participated in a panel on IDNs, and special attention was paid to her for her achievements, and Veni Markovski was a panelist talking about the governance of the Internet critical infrastructure.

The first day of the Russian IGF ended on a high note, with a cruise for all participants on the Moscow River.

In conclusion, the visit was a big success. ICANN is today more respected, has more friends, and is better known in Russia, than it was before.

Having said that, the work is not done. There are a number of items on the agenda in Russia and the region which require constant attention, cross-cultural knowledge, and good communication. ICANN top executives were able to see and understand this with their own eyes. The investment in improving relations with Russia paid off – less than two years ago nobody believed that ICANN would be welcome in Russia, that Russia would join the GAC, and that such good and positive relations were possible.

The launch of the Cyrillic IDN ccTLD was the focus of this visit, and it was well navigated on two continents, with a 9 hour time zone difference, and included dedicated work between IANA, Tina Dam, regional liaisons, top management, to make sure that not only it will be successful, but it will be a great celebration for the Russian Internet. ICANN performed at its best, and so did the Russians.

Congratulations, Russia! And good luck to the new IDN ccTLD .рф! And thank you, everyone, for the great time, wonderful launch, and being such good hosts!

Notes:
- Pictures from the Russian IGF could be seen here, and from the other meetings – here.
- We are deliberately not putting the names of all the people from Russia, who organized the Russian IGF, and who helped for the success of the ICANN’s visit. We don’t want to omit anyone, but we are thankful to everyone. Спасибо!
__________
* – The Garmisch meeting takes place every year in April, and ICANN is an active participant and supporter; last April George Sadowsky, Greg Rattray, Yurie Ito and Veni Markovski spoke there.
** – Col.-Gen. Sherstyuk is head of the IISI, and undersecretary of the Russian National Security Council to President Medvedev
*** – Besides Assistant Secretary Strickling, the US delegation included Ambassador Philip Verveer, Fiona Alexander, as well as representatives from State Department, Department of Commerce, the US Embassy in Moscow, and others.

لكن الأهم من ذلك تقديم التهاني إلى كل من شارك في هذا الإنجاز من الدول الثلاث وساهم في ظهور هذه الأسماء على الإنترنت: (.السعودية) و(.امارات) و(.مصر). ‏

The corresponding countries are:
United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Russian Federation, and Egypt.

This essentially means that we have started seeing domain names where the top-level/extension is either: امارات. السعودية. .рф مصر.

Congratulations to the teams behind:

• United Arab Emirates: امارات.
• Saudi Arabia: السعودية.
• Russian Federation: .рф
• Egypt: مصر.

The simultaneous delegation of the three Arabic based IDN ccTLDs was completed last week, and the delegation of the Russian IDN ccTLD was completed this week in conjunction with the Russian Internet Governance Forum: http://russia2010.intgov.net/eng/program.php

This is an history milestone and an achievement reached due to years of hard work by so many people across the world, including: technical developments with the core group in the IETF’s IDNA protocol working group; development of the policies and procedures; application development to ensure IDNs work across browser and other software; and so forth.

ICANN would like to thank everyone involved in making IDN TLDs a reality, and we look forward to seeing how IDN TLDs are embraced by users globally, and to the introduction of the next group of IDN ccTLDs. The full list will continue to be updated and can be found here: http://icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/string-evaluation-completion-en.htm

Some of the milestones leading to the last week’s great IDN result:

12 May 2010: Delegation of the Russian Federation IDN ccTLD

5 May 2010: Simultaneous delegation of the three first IDN ccTLDs for United Arabic Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt.

22 April 2010: ICANN Board approval of the first four country delegations, for Saudi Arabia, United Arabic Emirates, Russian Federation, and Egypt.

21 January 2010: ICANN announces the first four IDN ccTLD requests as having completed step 2 (of 3) in the Fast Track Process, thereby the requested IDN ccTLDs have been approved.

16 November 2009: ICANN launches the IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process thereby opening up for countries and territories to submit requests for IDN ccTLDs.

30 October 2009: ICANN Board approves the Final Implementation Plan for the IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process, and announces the launch.

Oct 2008: First draft implementation plan for IDN ccTLD Process

Feb 2008: First report from the IDNC WG leading to IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process

Jun 2003: IDNA protocol, IDN Guidelines, initiation of browser implementation

An area of the ICANN website is dedicated to IDN resources, and includes links to all the milestones and news announcements: http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/

ICANN is actively taking part in conferences and events, with a focus on applications and usability of new technology on the Internet. This is to spread information about IDNs and how they work in order to obtain a more streamlined user experience across applications.

We will continue to make more information, such as the examples below, available for users and everyone interested in IDNs. We very much appreciate any feedback you might have, pointers to what type of information you think might be lacking, and suggestions for online forums, seminars, or other type of events where information about IDNs would be good to include.

This first post is focused on how IDNs work and where registrations can be made.

What are IDNs?

The acronym “IDNs” stand for Internationalized Domain Names. IDNs are domain names that include characters used in the local representation of languages that contain one or more characters other than the twenty-six letters of the basic Latin alphabet “a,b,…z”, “0,1,…9” or “-“. An IDN can contain Latin letters with diacritical marks, as required by many European languages, or may consist of characters from non-Latin scripts such as Arabic or Chinese.

Example: ñandú.cl

Since the Domain Name System is not capable of communicating with these characters, a system is made so that the domain name stored is actually:

xn--and-6ma2c.cl

This “xn--and-6ma2c.cl” is referred to as the A-label for the IDN and does not make a lot of sense for users and was never intended for users to see – however, in some instances you will see this – see below for more explanations and examples.

Why are IDNs introduced?

Historically domain names could only consist of characters from “a,b,c…,z”; “0,1,2,…,9” and “-“.

The geographic expansion of the Internet and the corresponding increase of use by various linguistic groups or communities resulted in the need for domain names also to consist of characters from all scripts used in the world today. Content written in various languages has been around for a long time.

The fact is that for example websites where the content is all in Hindi should also have a web-address in Hindi. Web content in various languages has been around for a long time. The matching addresses are now here.

IDNs are about your choice

Let’s be clear: IDNs will provide opportunities for more people to have easier access to the Internet. Some people are concerned about IDNs dividing the Internet because they are not able to read or type some of these languages.

But it’s all about user choice. The choice of effectively being able to select which script or language a domain name should be based on. In this way you can brand yourself better and in that way target the market you want more effectively. Printed material can have web references in the same script as the material is written in. And keep in mind that a website can for example have more than one address….which now can be a choice between different scripts and languages.

Another aspect of this that is important to realize it that by introducing IDNs in the Internet/single root today means that we hopefully have avoided a fragmentation with various “internets” based on different scripts. That would be a situation where communication between these “internets” would be difficult if not impossible. Introducing IDNs in the Internet today effectively ensures the global interoperability of the Internet.

How can I make registrations of IDNs?

ICANN is not in the business of offering the domain names registrations. The registrations can be made through registrars or their resellers, and for some ccTLDs directly via the TLD registry manager. As such, for information about how to register domain names in the new IDN ccTLDs should be sough via the IDN ccTLD managers.

All current TLD managers and operators are listed at http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/

This will be updated shortly to include the three IDN ccTLDs that were made available yesterday http://icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-05may10-en.htm

Until then you can find the main points of contacts at: http://icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/string-evaluation-completion-en.htm

IDN registrations under some of the existing (ASCII) TLDs (e.g. .com, .org, .gr, .cn, etc) have been available since as early as 2001. The registry managers or your preferred choice of domain name registrar or reseller will be able to assist you with more information about these IDN registrations under existing ASCII TLDs. Domain names under the gTLDs (generic top-level domains such as .com) can be registered through ICANN accredited registrars or their resellers. A list of all ICANN accredited registrars is available here: http://www.icann.org/en/registrars/accredited-list.html

Note that some IDN ccTLD managers have decided to take pre-registrations before their requests for IDN ccTLDs have been completed. ICANN is not endorsing this as it is not possible to guarantee a certain TLD for availability until it has passed through all steps in the processes successfully.

How do IDNs work?

IDNs have been around for years at the second level (the “icann” portion in the address http://www.icann.org ) and as a result, browsers and other application software started updating their systems years ago. Today the newest versions of all major browsers can handle IDNs. They have implemented IDNs slightly differently, which will give slightly different user experience, but those that are IDN capable will get you to the right and same site. So what’s the difference?

Well due to the different ways that IDNs are implemented, different options are made available by the different browsers. Some examples as follows:

In all of these examples, you will get to the actual site. What does not always display as entered is the address in the address-bar. The examples explain how users can overcome this fact.

Internet Explorer:

The screenshots below is from IE v8 accessing: http://παράδειγμα.δοκιμή (this is the Greek version of the ICANN wiki and the address means “example.test” in English).

You will note two things:
1) The address in the address bar is displayed as:

http://xn--hxajbheg2az3al.xn--jxalpdlp/%CE%91%CF%81%CF%87%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE…

2) There is a small pop-up stating that the address cannot be displayed with your current language settings.

If you click on the pop-up and select the change language settings you will get the following options, where you can add languages to your settings:

Adding, in this example, Greek to your language settings will effectively display the address as in the following screenshot, where the address is displayed in Greek:

It is noticeable that the path in the web address contains “%CE%91%CF%81%CF%87…”. The path should effectively also be internationalized.

Mozilla Firefox

The screenshot below is from Firefox v 3.5.5 accessing: http://उदाहरण.परीक्षा (this is the Hindi version of the ICANN wiki and the address means “example.test” in English).

It is noticed that the address (and the path) in the address-bar is displayed correctly in the Devanagari script: http://उदाहरण.परीक्षा/मुख्य_पृष्ठ

The implementation of IDNs in Firefox is based on a white-list of those TLDs/extensions that Firefox considers ‘safe’. All the “.test” TLDs has been added to this white-list. If you are accessing a site and the address is displayed in the http://xn--p1b6ci4b4b3a.xn--11b5bs3a9aj6g format then this is because that particular TLD or extension is not in the Firefox white-list.

If you trust these addresses and wish them to display in the address-bar as the local characters then you can make changes to the white list manually. A detailed explanation on how to do this is available here: http://idn.icann.org/Firefox_Information

The screenshot below gives you an indication of what to look for, but please be careful when making changes so that you do not damage the functionality of the browser.

Opera Browser

The screenshots below is from Opera 10.53 accessing: http://בײַשפּיל.טעסט (this is the Yiddish version of the ICANN wiki and the address means “example.test” in English).

The Opera browser supports the “example.test” names either directly, or after updating as described in a separate article on the Opera Browser: http://idn.icann.org/Opera_Information

As is noticed in the above, the address in the Hebrew script displayed as http://xn--fdbk5d8ap9b8a8d.xn--deba0ad/הויפּט_זײַט – in order have it displayed as: http://בײַשפּיל.טעסט updates need to be made.

Another example where Opera is supporting the IDNs directly is displayed below, which is the Chinese version of “example.test” – i.e. http://例子.测试/首页

Are you using a different browser than those examples provided here?

Please try things out either live under any of the IDNs that are available, or in the IDN wiki at http://idn.icann.org and let us know how this works for you. The IDN wiki also contains a lot of additional information related to fonts etc. Please feel free to add and share your IDN expertise and experiences on the wiki.

The next IDN topic blog post will be on IDN & Security. Meanwhile, please make sure to let us know any topics you would like to see covered.

Internationalization of the internet means that the internet is equally accessible from all languages and scripts

More information about IDNs can be found at: http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/

IDN ccTLDs in the DNS root zone:

Egypt: مصر (Egypt)
Saudi Arabia: السعودية (AlSaudiah)
United Arab Emirates: امارات (Emarat)

- in addition Russian Federation: рф (rf) is approved by the ICANN Board for delegation, and related activities are scheduled for the Russian Internet Governance Forum http://russia2010.intgov.net/eng/program.php (next week)

A big congratulation to all four countries from the ICANN Team on reaching these goals! We are very much looking forward to seeing how the market will adopt and use these IDN ccTLDs.

Also a big THANK YOU goes out to all of those in the communty that have worked on this for years. That is, those on the ground at the various registries and governments that have worked actively locally; the IDNA protocol authors for outstanding technical volunteer work for years; the policy makers for getting the processes ready; application developers for making sure that IDNs functions in all new versions of the main browsers – and so forth.

IDN ccTLDs ready for TLD Delegation:

The last step in the Fast Track Process is the delegation step. Once requests successfully meet string the evaluation criteria they are eligible to apply for delegation. This is following the same ICANN IANA process as is used for ASCII based ccTLDs.

A total of nine (9) countries/territories are current at this stage. A full list of them, the IDN ccTLDs, and contact details are available here: http://icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/string-evaluation-completion-en.htm

The languages include: Chinese, Arabic, Sinhalese, Tamil, and Thai.

IDN ccTLDs under evaluation

In addition to everything listed above, ICANN is currently processing requests from eight (8) countries/territories. As soon as these have completed the String Evaluation” criteria they will be added to the list at: http://icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/string-evaluation-completion-en.htm

IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process looking forward

As is clear from all the positive IDN news, the fast Track Process is working really well for many countries. Part of making sure that it works effectively for all users is a review of the process. This is scheduled annually, which would be 16 November 2010. Staff is currently reviewing whether a review should take place sooner.

Also, as stated in the Fast Track Process, variant TLDs cannot be introduced until a method for this is made available. Please see a previous blog post for details on work that still needs to be done on this subject: http://blog.icann.org/2010/04/update-about-synchronized-idn-cctlds/

We hope to come with a more detailed plan on this soon.

IDN usability

Finally, we continue to receive a lot of questions concerning usability. The IDNs works well. We are working on a blog post with usability examples and explanations, and will publish this shortly.

Meanwhile, if you have experience with the new IDN ccTLDs please send them to us either as comments to this blog post, or directly to me at tina.dam@icann.org

What you should be seeing is something like the following:

It even works on a mobile phone:

The three new top-level domains are السعودية. (“Al-Saudiah”), امارات. ( “Emarat”) and مصر. (“Misr”). All three are Arabic script domains, and will enable domain names written fully right-to-left. Expect more as we continue to process other applications using the “fast track” methodology.

ICANN staff are still finishing the processing of these domain’s delegations, but now that they are visible in the root zone it is fair to say these are mostly formalities. The remaining tasks include final technical verifications, updating the IANA WHOIS database and publishing the delegation reports.

Now the hard work happens in the countries which have their new IDN ccTLDs. They will now commence their own processes to launch the domains in a way that gives their communities access to put them to day-to-day use.

The ICANN Board also took actions that are expected to expedite Chinese characters in top-level domains as part of the IDN ccTLD Fast Track. This will be the first set of variant IDN ccTLDs to be introduced – under special circumstances. More work is underway on the subject of variants, including policy-procedural analysis and technical definitions and plans for testing.

In addition, last week, a new IDN ccTLD request was announced as having passed the String Evaluation stage – for the country of Jordan. This means that Jordan now may enter the String Delegation step, which is the last step in the Fast Track Process. As such Jordan joins 13 other countries/territories having succesfully passed String Evaulation. The full list can be seen here: http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/string-evaluation-completion-en.htm

The total number of received requests in the Fast Track Process is: 21
The total number of languages represented is: 11

To read more about the IDN ccTLD Fast Track, go here: http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track

If you only see boxes in the above IDN ccTLDs, then you may need to download the necessary font: http://idn.icann.org/Fonts – or perhaps you are experiencing a problem with IDNs that is not rendered correctly when viewed in various applications. Either way we’d love to hear about it