ICANN Terms

The following terms are commonly used by the ICANN Community.

Actors/Roles

• CA – a third party company that issues digital certificates and public-private keys as a part of a chosen Public Key Infrastructure.
• ICANN Fellow – A member of the Internet community and recipient of a grant provided by the ICANN Fellowship Program.
• Independent Objector – a position created by ICANN to determine if a new gTLD application is in the best interest of the Internet community.
• NIC – A network information center manages a registry and contracts with the registrars accredited to sell domains under a given TLD.
• Registrant – A person who has registered a domain name through a registrar.
• Registrar – A company that is authorized to sell domain names.
• Internet Service Provider

Communities of Practice

• CCT
• GA
• GCOT
• ICANN Studienkreis
• IESG
• ICANN Bodies
• IRT
• JIG
• MAG
• RSTEP
• TDG
• TLG

Working Groups/Work Parties

• ASIWG – Arabic Script IDN Working Group
• CCWG-IG – Cross-Community Working Group on Internet Governance
• FFWG
• IDN WG
• PDP-WT
• PEDNR WG
• RAP WG
• VIWG
• WGIG

Task Forces

• IETF – The Internet Engineering Task Force is a large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet.
• Whois Task Force

Teams

• CERT – A Computer Emergency Response Team or Computer Security Incident Response Team is a group designated to handle computer security.
• Communications and Coordination Work Team – GNSO team for developing proposals for the Council in response to recommendations made by the BGC WG.
• STI-DT

Committees

• BGC - a committee established to enhance the performance of the Board, lead the annual Board performance review, including the CEO, and recommend nominees for Board Chair, Vice Chair, and other leadership positions.
• CEO Search Committee
• OSC
• PPSC
• SIC
• TMC

Databases

• Registry – a database of all domain names registered under a certain TLD.

Documents

• Applicant Guidebook – ICANN guidebook for applying for new gTLDs in the New gTLD Program
• ICANN Bylaws

Organizations

• APTLD – the Association for ccTLD registries in the Asia Pacific region
• ASIP – a non-profit organization, based in Jordan, for developing and modernizing intellectual property laws and systems in Arab countries.
• ICANN
• ISOC – The Internet Society
• PTI –

Processes

• ADR – an Alternative Dispute Resolution is a process for helping parties under dispute resolve their argument without filing any litigation.
• Batching – ICANN's process for dividing applications for the new gTLD program into batches.
• Public Comment
• RSEP – ICANN process for screening and approving proposals made by gTLD operators for new registry services.

Functions

• IANA –

Programs

• Fellowship Program
• New gTLD Program – a process by which ICANN accepts applications to add new TLDs to the Root Zone.
• NextGen@ICANN

Internet Architecture

• ARPANET – the first wide-area packet-switching network with distributed control to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite; the technical foundation of the Internet.

Domain Name System

• DNS – The Domain Name System translates between alphanumeric domain names and IP Addresses.
• Root Zone –

Protocols

Domain Name

• Domain Name – An identification string that represents an IP resource, such as a computer, website, or service.
• TLD – The Top Level Domain is the last part of a domain name; see the main article for more info on types of TLDs.
• IDN – An Internationalized Domain Names is formed using characters from different scripts, such as Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, or Devanagari. These are encoded by the Unicode standard following IDN protocol
• DNSSEC
• Internet Layer
• IP – Internet Protocol is the means by which data is sent from one computer to another via an Internet connection.
• IP Address – the unique number given to every computer connected to the Internet. This number allows users and other computers to find each other.
• Internet Protocol Suite
• IPv4
• IPv6

Top-Level Domain

Internationalized Domain Name

Generic Names Supporting Organization. Develops and recommends to the Board substantive policies relating to generic top-level domains and other responsibilities set forth in the Bylaws (ICANN Bylaws).

Country code top-level domain