Editing Internationalized domain name (section)

==Top-level domain implementation==
In 2009, ICANN decided to implement a new class of top-level domains, assignable to countries and independent regions, similar to the rules for [[country code top-level domains]]. However, the domain names may be any desirable string of characters, symbols, or glyphs in the language-specific, non-Latin alphabet or script of the applicant's language, within certain guidelines to assure sufficient visual uniqueness.

The process of installing IDN country code domains began with a long period of testing in a set of subdomains in the [[.test|<code>test</code>]] top-level domain. Eleven domains used language-native scripts or alphabets, such as "δοκιμή",<ref>[http://isvc3.icann.org/reports/2007/testetal-report-01aug2007.html IANA Report on Delegation of Eleven Evaluative Internationalised Top-Level Domains]{{Dead link|date=January 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> meaning ''test'' in [[Greek alphabet|Greek]].

These efforts culminated in the creation of the first [[internationalized country code top-level domain]]s (IDN ccTLDs) for production use in 2010.

In the Domain Name System, these domains use an [[ASCII]] representation consisting of the prefix "<code>xn--</code>" followed by the [[Punycode]] translation of the [[Unicode]] representation of the language-specific alphabet or script glyphs. For example, the [[Cyrillic]] name of Russia's IDN ccTLD is "рф". In Punycode representation, this is "<code>p1ai</code>", and its DNS name is "<code>xn--p1ai</code>".