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 top-level domain. Eleven domains used language-native scripts or alphabets, such as δοκιμή, meaning test in Greek.
These efforts culminated in the creation of the first internationalized country code top-level domains (IDN ccTLDs) for production use in 2010.
In the Domain Name System, these domains use an ASCII representation consisting of the prefix xn-- 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 p1ai, and its DNS name is xn--p1ai.
Read more about this topic: Internationalized Domain Name
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