Guidelines for Developing Reference Label Generation Rules (LGRs) for the Second Level Version 2

Open Date

30 March 2020 23:59 UTC

Close Date

12 May 2020 23:59 UTC

Staff Report Due

25 May 2020 23:59 UTC

Comments Closed

Report of Public Comments

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Brief Overview

Purpose: Detailed analyses of multiple scripts have been completed for the Root Zone Label Generation Rules (RZ-LGR) by the relevant communities. These analyses can now be used for creating reference second-level Label Generation Rules (LGRs) for these scripts. Therefore, the Guidelines for Developing Reference LGRs for the Second Level are being updated to also include details of how to design script-based reference LGRs in addition to language-based reference LGRs. These guidelines are published for community feedback on the proposed methodology.

Current Status: ICANN org had published reference second-level LGRs for multiple languages to facilitate the security and stability of Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) operations of generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) registries and improve transparency and consistency of testing IDN tables. The existing guidelines used for these reference IDN tables focus on developing language-based references LGRs.

Next Steps: Based on these guidelines, which will be finalized after incorporating the input from the community, ICANN org will continue to develop the IDN tables for additional languages and scripts and post these for public comment.

Your Comment: Your submission, including responses to questions and your name, will be published in the Public Comment archive on ICANN org's website. If you have any questions regarding Public Comment, please contact public-comment@icann.org.

Report of Public Comments

Section I: Description and Explanation

The gTLD registries offering IDNs registrations are required to submit IDN tables for review by ICANN org. ICANN org reviews these IDN tables to facilitate security and stability of IDN operations of gTLDs registries. In order to improve transparency and consistency of testing IDN tables, ICANN org had developed reference IDN tables for the second level for many languages in LGR format. This initial set of reference LGRs was developed using guidelines specific for designing language-based LGRs.

These guidelines need to be extended to develop script-based reference LGRs for the second level. The process is based on the recent work by both the technical community and the community using the relevant script. The technical community has provided input, including Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request for Comments (RFCs) such as RFC6912, RFC7940, RFC8228, etc. and Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) documents, such as SAC052, SAC060, SAC089, and SAC095.

Script communities have done detailed analysis and finalized solutions for the Root Zone Label Generation Rules (RZ-LGR) for Arabic, Armenian, Bangla, Chinese, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Ethiopic, Georgian, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Hebrew, Kannada, Khmer, Lao, Malayalam, Oriya, Sinhala, Tamil, Telugu, and Thai scripts. Work continues on other scripts.

Section II: Background

The registries are generally encouraged to collaborate in defining common language-based or script-based tables to allow for consistency for end users and address any security and stability concerns. There are multiple formats to submit IDN tables. The IDN tables used by each gTLD and some ccTLDs are posted at the IANA Repository for IDN Practices.