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Press Release: ICANN Policy Forum to Convene in Washington, D.C.

Stakeholders from around the world come together to shape policy that governs the technical aspects of the Internet

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Washington D.C. – 6 June 2023 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will hold its 77th Public Meeting in Washington, D.C., from 12 to 15 June 2023. It is the first time in ICANN's 24-year history that it will host a Public Meeting in the U.S. capital.

The ICANN77 Policy Forum will bring together stakeholders from around the world to discuss critical issues related to the management and evolution of the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS) and participate in bottom-up, consensus-driven policy-making that governs the technical aspects of the Internet. Through this multistakeholder model of governance, individuals representing noncommercial stakeholder groups, the technical community, civil society, academia, industry, and governments all play important roles in ensuring that the Internet remains secure, stable, and globally interoperable.

"We are thrilled to host ICANN77 in Washington, D.C., and provide a forum for the attendees to experience multistakeholderism in action," said ICANN Board Chair Tripti Sinha. "Through this model, the ICANN community is able to develop policies that ensure that the technical aspects of the Internet are governed in a manner that balances the interests of different stakeholders, from governments and businesses to civil society and technical experts."

The ICANN77 Policy Forum provides a platform for the ICANN community to advance its work and share insights and perspectives on the future of the Internet. The meeting will feature a range of sessions, workshops, and working groups focused on topics such as DNS security, policy development, digital inclusivity, and the expansion of the DNS. In addition, the meeting will provide opportunities for networking and engagement with other members of the community.

"ICANN's commitment to a single, open, and globally interoperable Internet has been critical in delivering greater accessibility and inclusivity," said Interim President and CEO Sally Costerton. "We look forward to continuing this important work with our community at ICANN77."

For more information about ICANN77, including registration, the schedule, and participation tools, please visit the meeting website at: https://meetings.icann.org/en/icann77.

About ICANN

ICANN's mission is to help ensure a stable, secure, and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet, you need to type an address – a name or a number – into your computer or other device. That address must be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN helps coordinate and support these unique identifiers across the world. ICANN was formed in 1998 as a nonprofit public benefit corporation with a community of participants from all over the world.

Media Contact

Alexandra Dans
Communications Director, The Americas
Montevideo, Uruguay
+598 95 831 442
alexandra.dans@icann.org
Or press@icann.org

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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."