IDN Standards Process

The development of Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) required cooperation and communication among the various organisations and individuals who are responsible for the technologies, systems and protocols of the Internet. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) led the effort to create standards for using non-ASCII characters in the Domain Name System (DNS).

Published IDN Standards

The standards related to IDNs are the encoding scheme, framework, protocol, Unicode and Right-to-left scripts. In August 2010, the IETF published the last of the IDN Requests for Comment (RFCs). Review our IETF Standards Summary.

• RFC 3492 — Encoding Scheme (punycode)
• RFC 5890 - IDNA Framework
• RFC 5891 - IDNA Protocol
• RFC 5892 - IDNA Unicode
• RFC 5893 - IDNA Right-to-Left Scripts
• RFC 5894 — Rationale
• RFC 5895 — Character Mapping

Verisign IDN Program

The Verisign IDN program follows the IETF standards and Verisign serves as an important partner in testing the application and technologies required; please review the technical considerations. In August 2010, the IETF published the last of the IDN Requests for Comment (RFCs) and Verisign has completed the migration process following the published RFCs.

Internet Standards Community

• Internet Architecture Board (IAB), the technical body that oversees the development of the Internet suite of protocols.
• Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), an international, voluntary group of network designers, engineers, researchers, vendors and other interested individuals who work together to address and resolve technical and operational problems on the Internet and develop Internet standards and protocols.
• Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN): an international not-for-profit, private sector organisation created to coordinate four key functions for the Internet: the management of the domain name system, the allocation of IP address space, the assignment of protocol parameters, and the management of the root server system.