Editing Internationalized domain name (section)

{{Short description|Type of internet domain name}}
{{redirect|IDNA|the city|Idna}}
[[Image:IDN-utopia-greek.jpg|thumbnail|Example of Greek IDN with domain name in non-[[Latin alphabet]]: ουτοπία.δπθ.gr ([[Punycode]] is xn--kxae4bafwg.xn--pxaix.gr)]]

An '''internationalized domain name''' ('''IDN''') is an [[Internet]] [[domain name]] that contains at least one label displayed in [[Application software|software applications]], in whole or in part, in non-Latin script or [[alphabet]]{{efn|Such as [[Arabic]], [[Bengali language|Bengali]], [[Chinese character|Chinese]] ([[Mandarin Chinese|Mandarin]], [[Simplified Chinese characters|simplified]] or [[Traditional Chinese characters|traditional]]), [[Cyrillic alphabet|Cyrillic]] (including [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]], [[Russian language|Russian]], [[Serbian language|Serbian]] and [[Ukrainian language|Ukrainian]]), [[Devanagari]], [[Greek alphabet|Greek]], [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], [[Hindi]], [[Tamil language|Tamil]] or [[Thai language|Thai]].}} or in the [[Latin alphabet]]-based characters with [[diacritics]] or [[Typographic ligature|ligatures]].{{efn|Such as [[French language|French]], [[German language|German]], [[Italian language|Italian]], [[Polish language|Polish]], [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] or [[Spanish language|Spanish]].}} These [[writing system]]s are encoded by computers in [[Variable-width encoding|multibyte]] [[Unicode]]. Internationalized domain names are stored in the [[Domain Name System]] (DNS) as [[ASCII]] strings using [[Punycode]] transcription.

The DNS, which performs a lookup service to translate mostly user-friendly names into network addresses for locating Internet resources, is restricted in practice{{efn|{{IETF RFC|2181}}, ''Clarifications to the DNS Specification'': section 11 explicitly allows any binary string. Non-ASCII encodings such as [[UTF-8]] have indeed been (privately) used over DNS per {{IETF RFC|6055}}. The system of internet domain name registration is, however, totally incapable of handling non-ASCII encodings, hence the restriction; see also {{IETF RFC| 5890}} §§ 2.2, 2.3 on the format of names.}} to the use of ASCII characters, a practical limitation that initially set the standard for acceptable domain names. The internationalization of domain names is a technical solution to translate names written in language-native scripts into an ASCII text representation that is compatible with the DNS. Internationalized domain names can only be used with applications that are specifically designed for such use; they require no changes in the infrastructure of the Internet.

IDN was originally proposed in December 1987 by Martin Dürst<ref>{{cite news|author=Dürst, Martin J.|title=Internet Draft: Internationalization of Domain Names|newspaper=Ietf Datatracker |url=https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-duerst-dns-i18n-00|date=December 10, 1996|publisher=The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Internet Society (ISOC)|access-date=2009-10-31}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|author=Dürst, Martin J.|title=URLs and internationalization|url=http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/uri/1996Dec/0038.html|date=December 20, 1996|publisher=World Wide Web Consortium|access-date=2009-10-30}}</ref> and implemented in 1990 by Tan Juay Kwang and Leong Kok Yong under the guidance of Tan Tin Wee.{{citation needed|date=January 2020}} After much debate and many competing proposals, a system called ''Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications'' (IDNA)<ref>{{Cite IETF |rfc=3490 |title=Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA) |first1=P. |last1=Faltstrom |first2=P. |last2=Hoffman |first3=A. |last3=Costello |date=March 2003}}</ref> was adopted as a standard, and has been implemented in several [[top-level domain]]s.

In IDNA, the term ''internationalized domain name'' means specifically any domain name consisting only of labels to which the IDNA ToASCII [[algorithm]] (see below) can be successfully applied. In March 2008, the [[IETF]] formed a new IDN working group to update<ref>{{cite news |url=https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-idnabis-protocol |title=Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA): Protocol (RFC 5891 Draft)|author=John Klensin |newspaper=Ietf Datatracker |author-link=John Klensin |date=January 6, 2010 | publisher=[[Internet Engineering Task Force]] | access-date=2016-08-12}}</ref> the current IDNA protocol. In April 2008, [[Afilias]] together with [[UN-ESCWA]] and the [[Public Interest Registry]] (PIR) launched the Arabic Script in IDNs Working Group (ASIWG), which comprised experts in DNS, [[ccTLD]] operators, business, academia, as well as members of regional and international organizations, drawn from Egypt, Gambia, Iran, Jordan, Tunisia, Algeria, Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti, Kuwait, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, UAE and Malaysia. Chaired by Afilias's Ram Mohan, ASIWG aimed to develop a unified IDN table for the [[Arabic script]], and is an example of community collaboration that helps local and regional experts engage in global policy development, as well as technical standardization.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.unescwa.org/sites/www.unescwa.org/files/publications/files/ictd-09-7-e.pdf|title=Internet Governance: Challenges and Opportunities for the ESCWA Member Countries|last=Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA)|first=United Nations|date=15 June 2009|work=United Nations|access-date=7 Dec 2019}}</ref>

In October 2009, the [[ICANN|Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers]] (ICANN) approved the creation of [[internationalized country code top-level domain]]s (IDN ccTLDs) in the Internet that use the IDNA standard for native language scripts.<ref>{{cite press release|title=ICANN Bringing the Languages of the World to the Global Internet|url=http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-30oct09-en.htm|date=October 30, 2009|publisher=Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)|access-date=2009-10-30}}</ref><ref name=BBC-200910>{{cite news|title=Internet addresses set for change |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8333194.stm|date=October 30, 2009|publisher=BBC News|access-date=2009-10-30}}</ref> In May 2010, the first IDN ccTLDs were installed in the [[DNS root zone]].<ref name="ICANN-2010-05-05">{{cite press release|title=First IDN ccTLDs now available|url=https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2010-05-05-en|date=May 5, 2010|publisher=Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)|access-date=2010-05-06}}</ref>