Internationalized Domain Name

Internationalized Domain Name or IDN is the system of availing localized names for the websites in Unicode. Localized names, for example, Greek alphabets like alpha, beta or German alphabets were not usually made available by Internet Corporation For Assigned Names And Numbers or ICANN. But the society that works on the proper outsourcing of Internationalized Domain Name is known as Internationalized Domain Names in Application (IDNA). This society works in a proper understanding with ICANN in order to root out all confusions that a user might face. IDNA takes care that the user does not land up in confusion because of the Unicode language or overlapping of addresses. Such overlapping occurs because of similarities between Unicode and ASCII figures.

You must be wondering what are ASCII figures? ASCII figures comprise the following figures:

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z.
• a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z.
• 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
• Hyphen (-)
• Dot (.)

The ASCII standard was adopted in 1960 as the standard language for Domain Name System by the ICANN committee. But later on, due to the increasing demands of non-English speaking countries, the proposal for developing non-ASCII standards for writing domain names was given importance.

A Brief History Of The Set Up Of Internationalized Domain Name

• 2000 – On the 25th of September, ICANN board of directors take up the issue of IDN and realizes international importance of the matter.
• 2001 – The Internal Working Group, appointed by ICANN submits all details of the problems and facts concerning IDN.
• 2002 – In October, the Internet Engineering Steering Group recognized and approved the RFC 3490, RFC 3491, and RFC 3492 to come out in publication. The RFCs together approve the use of Unicode and lay down the guidelines of using Unicode for writing domain names.
• 2003 – RFCs are published in June.

The committee that constitutes the IDN committee is as follows:

• Masanobu Katoh (Committee Chair) (ICANN Director)
• Mouhamet Diop (ICANN Address Council)
• Patrik F?str?IETF/IESG)
• Qiheng Hu (Internet Society of China)
• John Klensin (IAB Chair)
• Sang-Hyon Kyong (ICANN Director)
• Stuart Lynn (ICANN President)
• Elisabeth Porteneuve (ICANN Names Council)
• Mohamed Sharil Tarmizi (GAC Vice Chair)
• Vincent Wen-Sung Chen (TWNIC)

What is a Domain Name System? What is ICANN?

In case you are not aware what the domain name system is, here is a brief description of IDN and ICANN. The Domain Name System or DNS is an arrangement that ensures that all the Internet addresses are unique so that when you search a web page, or send e-mails to a particular Internet address the correct destinations are reached. The domain name system is officially managed by a non-profit organization called Internet Corporation For Assigned Names And Numbers or simply ICANN.