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.
• Internet Service Provider
• 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.
• Stakeholder

Communities of Practice

• GA – the General Assembly Mailing List is an open forum for participation for the GNSO.
• Constituency
• ICANN Studienkreis – an open network of experts dedicated to organizing high-level seminars on Internet industry and governance
• IESG – the Internet Engineering Steering Group oversees the technical management of the IETF.
• ICANN Bodies
• 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
• JIG – The Joint ccNSO-GNSO IDN Working Group deals with the introduction of IDN ccTLDs under the Fast Track Implementation Process
• 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.
• GCOT– the GNSO team for identifying areas for review to best seat a new Council and gather OSC feedback
• IRT The Implementation Recommendation Team is an Intellectual Property Constituency-created group of consumer protection and trademark law experts.
• 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 – GNSO Operations Steering Committee
• 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
• Community Objection – a formal public comment made during the objection period of 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.
• CORE – The Internet Council of Registrars is a non-profit organization formed in 1996 based on the gTLD-MoU to assist the launch of domain name spaces
• ICANN
• IGF
• 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.

Practices

• Cybersquatting attempting to profit by purchasing domain names made of marketable and trademark-related terms and later reselling or licensing those names back to the companies that developed the trademark

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.
• DNSSEC
• 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
• 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
• TLD – The Top Level Domain is the last part of a domain name; see the main article for more info on types of TLDs.
• WHOIS is a query and response protocol for querying databases that store the registered users or assignees of an Internet resource, such as a domain name, an IP address block or an autonomous system.

Top-Level Domain

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).

Internet Engineering Task Force

Internationalized Domain Name

Country Code Names Supporting Organization. Develops and recommends to the Board global policies relating to country-code top-level domains (ICANN Bylaws).

Country code top-level domain