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ICANN Data Protection Practices

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ICANN understands the importance of requirements and practices for protecting personal data. This page provides you with information about our data protection practices related to your use of the content and services available at or through any website operated by ICANN.

Privacy Policy

This policy explains what information we collect and why, how it is used, and your choices regarding the collection and use of the information.

Read our Privacy Policy

Redline from the previous version of our Privacy Policy [PDF, 201 KB]

New gTLD Program Personal Data Privacy Statement

This policy explains what information we collect and why, how it is used, and your choices regarding the collection and use of the information processed from Applicants and new gTLD Program participants.

Read our New gTLD Program Personal Data Privacy Statement

Redline from the previous version of our New gTLD Program Personal Data Privacy Statement [PDF, 58 KB]

Terms of Service

This explains the terms and conditions that govern your use of the content and services available at or through any operated by ICANN.

Read our Terms of Service

Redline from the previous version of our Terms of Service [PDF, 169 KB]

Cookies Policy

This policy informs users about how we use of cookies.

Read our Cookies Policy

Redline from the previous version of our Cookies Policy [PDF, 106 KB]

Notice of Applicant Privacy

This notice explains what information we collect in connection with your employment application, how it is used, and your choices regarding the collection and use of the information.

Read our Notice of Applicant Policy

Archive

Other useful privacy and security related materials

A note about our terms of service:

We have updated our electronic terms of service to provide greater transparency and align with laws applicable to us. Learn more.

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Domain Name System
Internationalized Domain Name ,IDN,"IDNs are domain names that include characters used in the local representation of languages that are not written with the twenty-six letters of the basic Latin alphabet ""a-z"". 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. Many languages also use other types of digits than the European ""0-9"". The basic Latin alphabet together with the European-Arabic digits are, for the purpose of domain names, termed ""ASCII characters"" (ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange). These are also included in the broader range of ""Unicode characters"" that provides the basis for IDNs. The ""hostname rule"" requires that all domain names of the type under consideration here are stored in the DNS using only the ASCII characters listed above, with the one further addition of the hyphen ""-"". The Unicode form of an IDN therefore requires special encoding before it is entered into the DNS. The following terminology is used when distinguishing between these forms: A domain name consists of a series of ""labels"" (separated by ""dots""). The ASCII form of an IDN label is termed an ""A-label"". All operations defined in the DNS protocol use A-labels exclusively. The Unicode form, which a user expects to be displayed, is termed a ""U-label"". The difference may be illustrated with the Hindi word for ""test"" — परीका — appearing here as a U-label would (in the Devanagari script). A special form of ""ASCII compatible encoding"" (abbreviated ACE) is applied to this to produce the corresponding A-label: xn--11b5bs1di. A domain name that only includes ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens is termed an ""LDH label"". Although the definitions of A-labels and LDH-labels overlap, a name consisting exclusively of LDH labels, such as""icann.org"" is not an IDN."