tldlog.com

domain name news

Glossary

Back to the letters

A

Back to the letters

B

Back to the letters

C

Back to the letters

D

Back to the letters

E

Back to the letters

F

Back to the letters

G

Back to the letters

H

Back to the letters

I

  • IANA

    Internet Assigned Numbers Authority

    The functions that coordinate the root zone, IP addresses and protocol numbers.

    guide

  • IANA registrar ID

    The unique number that identifies an ICANN-accredited registrar.

  • IANA stewardship transition

    The 2016 handover of IANA oversight from the United States government to the internet community.

  • ICA

    Internet Commerce Association

    A trade group that represents domain name investors in policy debates.

  • ICANN

    Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

    The nonprofit that coordinates the global DNS and gTLD policy.

    guide

  • ICANN accreditation

    ICANN approval that allows a company to register gTLD domains as a registrar.

  • ICANN Board

    ICANN's board of directors, which adopts policies and approves key decisions.

  • ICANN Bylaws

    ICANN's main rulebook, which sets its mission, structure and accountability rules.

  • ICANN Contractual Compliance

    The ICANN team that enforces registry and registrar contracts.

  • ICANN Domain Metrica

    ICANN's platform measuring reported abuse across registries and registrars, successor to Domain Abuse Activity Reporting.

  • ICANN fees

    The contract fees that registries and registrars pay to fund ICANN.

  • ICANN Grant Program

    An ICANN program that funds projects using money from 2012 round TLD auctions.

  • ICANN Lookup

    ICANN's free web tool that looks up public registration data through RDAP.

  • ICANN meeting

    One of ICANN's public meetings, normally held three times a year.

  • ICANN org

    ICANN's paid staff, as distinct from its Board and its volunteer community.

  • Identity Digital

    A company, formerly Donuts, that runs many gTLDs and provides registry services.

  • IDN

    Internationalized Domain Name

    A domain name written in local scripts or with accented letters.

    guide

  • IDN ccTLD

    Internationalized Domain Name country code top-level domain

    A country code TLD written in a non-Latin script.

  • IDN table

    A registry's list of the characters it allows in internationalized domain names.

  • IDN TLD

    Internationalized Domain Name Top-Level Domain

    A top-level domain written in a non-Latin script or with accented Latin letters.

  • IDN variant

    A label treated as equivalent to another because its characters are interchangeable.

  • IDN variant TLD

    A TLD treated as the same as another one written with different characters.

  • IDNA2008

    Internationalized Domain Names for Applications, 2008 revision

    The current standard defining which characters internationalized domain names may use.

  • IETF

    Internet Engineering Task Force

    The open body that writes internet standards such as DNS, EPP and RDAP.

  • IGF

    Internet Governance Forum

    A yearly United Nations forum to discuss internet policy, with no binding decisions.

  • IGO curative rights

    Planned UDRP and URS changes so intergovernmental organizations can file cases without waiving immunity.

  • Implementation Recommendation Team

    The 2009 expert group that proposed trademark protections for new gTLDs.

  • in rem action

    A lawsuit under United States law against a domain name itself, not its holder.

  • inactive

    Status code for a registered domain with no name servers, so it does not resolve.

  • INFERMAL

    Inferential Analysis of Maliciously Registered Domains

    An ICANN-funded study of which registration features attract malicious domain registrations.

  • Interim Registration Data Policy

    The stopgap policy that kept Temporary Specification rules alive from 2019 until August 2025.

  • internal transfer

    Moving a domain between customer accounts at the same registrar.

  • internet governance

    The shared rules and decision processes that shape how the internet works and is used.

    guide

  • IP

    Internet Protocol

    The internet's basic rules for sending data, using numeric addresses for every connected device.

  • IPC

    Intellectual Property Constituency

    The GNSO group that represents trademark and other intellectual property owners.

  • IRP

    Independent Review Process

    A review by an independent panel of whether ICANN broke its own Bylaws.

  • IRT

    Implementation Review Team

    A volunteer team that helps ICANN staff turn approved policy into detailed rules.

  • ISO 3166-1

    The standard list of country codes that decides which ccTLDs can exist.

  • ISOC

    Internet Society

    A global nonprofit that supports the open internet and is the parent of the .org registry.

  • Issue Report

    The staff document that scopes a problem before a GNSO policy process begins.

  • ITU

    International Telecommunication Union

    The United Nations agency for telecommunications, often cited in debates on who should govern the internet.

  • IWF

    Internet Watch Foundation

    A British charity that reports child sexual abuse material, including to registries and registrars.

Back to the letters

K

  • key rollover

    The planned, step-by-step replacement of a DNSSEC signing key.

  • KSK

    Key Signing Key

    The DNSSEC key that signs a zone's key set and is referenced by the parent zone.

Back to the letters

L

Back to the letters

M

Back to the letters

N

Back to the letters

O

Back to the letters

P

Back to the letters

Q

  • QLP

    Qualified Launch Program

    Lets a new gTLD registry allocate up to 100 promotional names before or during sunrise.

  • QNAME minimization

    A resolver privacy technique that sends each server only the part of the name it needs.

  • quarantine

    A waiting period after cancellation in some ccTLDs when only the former holder can recover the domain.

  • QUIC

    An encrypted transport protocol used by recent web traffic and by DNS over QUIC.

Back to the letters

R

Back to the letters

S

Back to the letters

T

Back to the letters

U

Back to the letters

V

Back to the letters

W

Back to the letters

X

Back to the letters

Z

Back to the letters