- What are IDNs?
IDN stands for Internationalized Domain Name. An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an internet domain name that contains at least one character that is displayed in software applications such as web browsers, in whole or in part, in a language-specific script or alphabet, such as Chinese, Russian or the Latin-based languages with diacritics, such as German.
An example would be Jörn.tel or 李.tel. These names will be seen in software applications such as web browsers. IDN-aware applications translate these names into traditional ASCII-only strings such as, for example, xn--1lq90i.tel. As a result, IDNs are displayed in their internationalized form in the user interface, while internally applications and servers communicate using ASCII-only forms of the same domains.
Every registered IDN must be associated with a specific language. For more information on IDNs, please see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalized_domain_name
- What languages are supported for IDN.tel domains?
Seventeen languages are currently supported. Those languages are Chinese, Danish, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish.
- Why is my language not supported in IDNs?
IDN policies are a product of a collaborative work of technical, legal and linguistic experts. Telnic believes that the best avenue for developing IDN policies for a given language is through the countries and communities that use that language. The reasoning for Telnic"s choice of languages is therefore based on how close a given country or community is to a consensus in regards to what rules must govern their local language IDNs.
- Will further languages be supported in IDNs?
IDN policy development is an ongoing process. Telnic will be considering the introduction of new IDN languages based on the results of the discussions within the respective communities.
- What characters are allowed in IDN.tel domains?
Generally, all characters that are used in the language an IDN is associated with are allowed. For more details, please refer to the policy document for the corresponding IDN language. IDN policies are published on Telnic's web site at telnic.org/policies.html. Each of the policies contains a character table that lists all the characters allowed for an IDN in a given language.
- What characters are not allowed in IDN.tel domains?
Any characters that are not included in the character table for a given language, are not allowed. For example, one cannot register münchén.tel as a German language IDN, because letter "é" is not part of the German language character table.
- How can I register an IDN.tel domain?
IDN.tel domain names can be registered through a sub-set of our ICANN-accredited Registrar partners. A list of those selling .tel domains and IDNs will be found at telnic.org/get-started-buy.html. Those that support IDN.tel domain name registrations will be marked with an asterisk.
- What restrictions are there on purchasing IDN.tel domains?
Apart from the restrictions on the types of characters that can be registered and the languages supported, there are no further restrictions on the registration of IDN.tel domain names and 1 and 2 character IDNs are available.
- What software applications support IDNs?
Most modern browsers, such as Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 7.0 and Safari support IDNs. More details of IDN support in other applications are available at idn.icann.org/IDN-aware_software.
- Can I set up an e-mail address using an IDN.tel domain name?
The part of an e-mail address that appears to the left of the @-sign is subject to different rules than the ones that govern the domain name part of the address, which appears to the right of the @-sign. Some modern e-mail clients, such as Microsoft Outlook, allow use of internationalized domain labels to the right of the @-sign. Protocol for full internationalization of e-mail addresses is currently being developed. More information is available at idn.icann.org/E-mail_test.
- Can I purchase a one or two character IDN.tel domain?
Yes, if it is available and conforms to the character sets and language tables available.
- Do IDN.tel domains cost more than standard .tel domain names?
Exact retail pricing is decided by our participating registrars, and so varies from company to company. Generally, however, Internationalised .tel domains do not cost any more than regular .tel domain names.
- Do you take measures against homographic attacks?
Yes, for IDNs associated with Chinese, Japanese and Russian languages .tel employs a variant blocking mechanism so domain names in different scripts that look confusingly similar cannot be registered. For example, if the domain name pear.tel is registered, реаг.tel (all these characters are Cyrillic) will not be available for registration. Please see the IDN Policies for more details.
- What is a "decorated" character domain?
A "decorated" character domain is one which has one or more characters that has linguistic "ornaments". An example of a "decorated" domain is Björn, as opposed to Bjorn, which has no "decorated" characters.
- If I own domains without "decorated" characters that match those with decorated characters, am I eligible to get these domains?
All IDN.tel domains will be first-come, first served. There is no automatic right to gain a "decorated" character domain automatically.
- What are the rules for registering an IDN.tel?
With one specific exception, every .tel domain name (in its ASCII-Compatible Encoded form) is treated independently. Each domain name is handled on a "first-come, first-served" basis. This is a continuation of the current .tel policy.
That exception deals with Chinese Internationalised Domain Names, where Traditional and Simplified Chinese characters are considered to be "the same". In that specific case, Telnic ensures that when a Chinese IDN is registered, the domain name that consists entirely of Simplified Chinese characters and the domain name that consists entirely of Traditional Chinese characters is managed together with the requested domain; these are treated as one unit.
The ownership of a domain name does not give any automatic rights to register any other domain name. Thus ownership of shop.tel does not give any rights to ashop.tel or theshop.tel. This is also true for names that have different spellings, so that Smith is different from Smithe.
In order not to act arbitrarily, Telnic processes names on a purely deterministic basis. This is done with commonly defined rules, not ones that have been invented in an "ad hoc" manner.
Telnic will not make arbitrary and subjective decisions on what names people can use, so it simply treats each name as being different.
- How have you decided the rules for registering an IDN.tel?
Possible Rules for Assignment of International Domain Names (IDNs) is not a simple subject.
Since general availability of .tel domains, Telnic has not made decisions on the comparability or otherwise of domain names. With the introduction of Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs), the situation becomes more complex. Within a language, some words have forms with and without "ornamented" characters, and there are a number of different rules to map from one name form to another. Unfortunately, these rules conflict. That means that there is no single deterministic scheme that will work for any word.
Many words have crept into usage in other languages, and those words differ in the way they apply diacriticals, or even whether there are diacriticals in the different language versions. Some languages drop the "ornamentation" for some capital letters. Other languages do use these ornamented capital letters. Thus is may not be clear whether or not two domain requests that have been converted to lower case are the same. Thus transliteration between the "ornamented" and plain versions of a character might need to be considered.
Here are just a few of the rules that might apply:
— should ä be associated with a or ae?
— should ö be associated with o or oe?
— should ü be associated with u or ue?
But then...
— should ae or A or a be associated with ä?
— should oe or O or o be associated with ö?
— should ue or U or u be associated with ü?
As an example, should Noel (a first name, a town in Missouri, a hurricane, a company in Columbia, and a poetical English word for Christmas) be associated with the string Nöl (using German rules), or with Nöel (Christmas in French and other languages)? Conversely, is Nöl associated with Noel, or with Nol? Also, should Nöel be associated with Noeel (again applying German language rules)?
Thus, if noel.tel is registered, should Telnic block an attempt to register nöl.tel? Conversely, if someone registers nöl.tel, will Telnic then have to block a subsequent attempt to register the domain noel.tel? Also, what of the domain name nol.tel – should this also be blocked? Finally, if nol.tel has already been registered, does this mean that nöl and nöel are not available?
Trying to apply these conflicting rules to block registration attempts for "associated" words would raise many questions and the confusion that would bring would not help anyone. Without checking every name in advance against dictionaries for each language, it is not possible to come to single, unambiguous, clear and fair answer. As the result would still be subjective, Telnic continues to treat each domain name as a separate item, and allocates names on a first-come, first-served basis. After much research, Telnic has concluded that this is the most equitable solution for all community members.
Telnic does not make any judgemental on whether or not there is any prior right to a name. That remains a task for WIPO or other approved arbitrators. If an organisation believes that it has right to a domain for which it has not applied or secured, it can use the UDRP, the decisions of which Telnic of course respects.