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.
• Domainer – a person who buys and sells domain names, seeking to profit from selling at a higher price later or from advertising activities.
• I* Leaders – a loose category of organizations responsible for technical infrastructures on the Internet.
• 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 – The Multistakeholder Advisory Group was established by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on May 17, 2006, to help him set-up the Internet Governance Forum.
• PAB – Policy Advisory Board
• RSTEP
• TDG
• TLG

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
• IPOC
• OSC – GNSO Operations Steering Committee
• PPSC
• SIC
• TMC

Panels

• ACP – Administrative Challenge Panel
• Comparative Evaluation Panel
• DNS Stability Panel – reviews proposed new TLD applications to ensure that they will not harm the security and stability of the Internet.
• Financial Evaluation Panel – assesses new gTLD applications to determine if the applicants are financially capable of maintaining the proposed operations of the new gTLD registry.
• Geographic Names Panel – determines whether proposed new gTLDs represent geographic names (a country, territory, sub-national geographic region, city, continent, or UN Region) under the standards set forth by Applicant Guidebook.
• String Similarity Panel
• Technical Evaluation Panel

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.
• DT – A Drafting Team is established by the GNSO to advise ICANN staff and Council members on amendments to the Registrar Accreditation Agreement
• 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

Working Groups/Work Parties

• ASIWG – Arabic Script IDN Working Group
• CCWG-IG – Cross-Community Working Group on Internet Governance
• FFWG – The Fast Flux Working Group was formed by ICANN in 2008 to deal with problems and gain expert opinion on the best use of fast flux and its scope for the GNSO.
• 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

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.
• FOA the Form of Authorization is the first step towards transferring a global domain name from one registrar to another.
• GPML – Global Protected Marks List was created to provide additional protection to Intellectual Property holders.
• Green Paper – The Proposal to Improve the Technical Management of Internet Names and Addresses was released by the NTIA in the Federal Register on February 20, 1998.
• GTLD-MoU – Generic Top Level Domain Name-Memorandum of Understanding, containing proposals to resolve problems associated with DNS domain name allocations, was introduced on February 28, 1997, by the Internet Ad Hoc Committee.
• ICANN Bylaws – the internal rules set forth for ICANN by the ICANN Board.
• Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy – the policy developed by ICANN for the safe, straight-forward transfer of domain names from one registrar to another, dispute resolution, and undoing the transfer if it was done as a result of an error.
• JPA – The Joint Project Agreement signed to reach a Memorandum of Understanding between ICANN and the US Department of Commerce in September 2006 to transition DNS management to the private sector (ICANN).
• MoU – a legal document of agreement between two or more parties. It is not completely obligatory like a legal contract is, but it is more powerful and legitimate than the earlier "gentleman’s agreement."
• Registrar Accreditation Agreement – the contract that governs the relationship between ICANN and its accredited registrars.

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.
• DNS – The Domain Name System translates between alphanumeric domain names and IP Addresses.
• Internet Layer – A group of internetworking methods, protocols, and specifications used to transport network packets from the originating host across network boundaries.
• Root Zone –

Protocols

• FTP – a TCP/IP-based network protocol to transmit files from one computer to another through the Internet.
• ENUM – Electronic Numbering is a protocol developed by the IETF's Telephone Number Mapping Working Group, which used DNS architecture and protocol to identify available services associated with E.164.
• EPP – Extensible Provisioning Protocol is an XML-based protocol used by registrars and registries in managing domain names (register, renew, modify, delete, transfer) in a Shared Registry System environment.
• HTTP – Hypertext Transfer Protocol is a standard networking protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia systems used on the World Wide Web since 1990.
• 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.
• IPv4 – the version of internet protocol that defines IP addresses in a 32-bit format; the last blocks of IPv4 addresses were allocated by IANA to the Regional Internet Registries in February 2011.
• IPv6 – the version of Internet protocol that supports 128-bit IP addresses.
• IRIS – Internet Registry Information Service, developed to replace WHOIS, is an application layer client-server protocol for a framework to represent the query-and-result operations of the information services of Internet registries.
• LDAP – a software protocol for enabling anyone to locate organizations, individuals, and other resources such as files and devices in a network, whether on the public Internet or on a corporate intranet.
• 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.
• TCP/IP – Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (aka Internet Protocol Suite) serves as the industry standard in connecting networks to networks.

Domain Name

• Domain Name – An identification string that represents an IP resource, such as a computer, website, or service.
• DNSSEC – extensions that enable communication authentication between hosts and DNS data, while ensuring data integrity.
• Generic String – a string consisting of a word or term that denominates or describes a general class of goods, services, groups, organizations, or things, as opposed to distinguishing a specific brand of goods, services, groups, organizations or things from those of others.
• 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.
• TLD – The Top Level Domain is the last part of a domain name; see the main article for more info on types of TLDs.

Internet Infrastructure

• IXP – an Internet Exchange Point (aka Network Access Point) is a physical point where different Internet service Providers meet to exchange their data and connect networks to form the Internet; without them, global wide-area networking would not be possible.
• Local Area Network – a network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus, or office building.

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.
• EFF – The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a donor-funded non-profit organization that defends free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights.
• ICANN – Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a global multistakeholder organization created by the U.S. Department of Commerce to coordinate the DNS, IP addresses, and autonomous system numbers and manage these evolving systems and their underlying protocols.
• IGF
• ISOC – The Internet Society
• ISPAI Internet Servers Providers Association of Ireland or Internet Service Providers Association India
• PTI – the organization responsible for the operation of the IANA Functions (coordinating the Internet's unique identifiers)
• US ISPA – United States Internet Service Providers Association

Processes

Functioning of the Internet

• IANA – managing the DNS root zone, the .int registry, and the .arpa zone; coordinating and allocating the global IP respectively AS number space to Regional Internet Registries; and providing the main repository for number registries and protocol names.
• IANA Functions Stewardship Transition – a process and community discussion regarding the United States government's NTIA's provision of the IANA functions to the global Internet community, spearheaded by ICANN.
• Internet governance – the development of norms and principles relating to how the Internet functions by a group of stakeholders including governments, organizations, and commissions and the regulation and administration of those principals by the parties involved.

Mechanisms

• 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.
• Digital Archery – ICANN mechanism for determining the processing time or batch slots for each gTLD application using target time variance.
• Public Comment
• RSEP – ICANN process for screening and approving proposals made by gTLD operators for new registry services.
• UDRP – The Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy is a set of ICANN guidelines for resolving disputes over domain name registration.
• URS – The Uniform Rapid Suspension System provides trademark owners with a quick, low-cost process to take down websites that infringe on their intellectual property rights.

Periods

• Landrush Period
• Sunrise Period

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
• Data Escrow – storing data with a neutral third party in case of registry or registrar failure, accreditation termination, or accreditation relapse without renewal.
• Defensive Registration – registering domain names, often across multiple TLDs and in various grammatical formats, to protect intellectual property from DNS abuse.
• Delegation – entering a new TLD into the Root Zone of the Internet.
• Direct Navigation – visiting a website while bypassing online search engines to arrive at the desired domain.
• Domain Kiting – returning a name just before the five-day period expires and re-registering it again as soon as it becomes available.
• Domain Monetization – purchasing domain names and then either selling, leasing, or parking them to earn money.
• Domain Tasting using the free five-day grace period at the beginning of ICANN's registration process to test the marketability of a specific domain name.
• Drop-Catching – the auto-registration of domains at the moment of their deletion.
• Fast Flux – technique to evade identification and thwart anti-crime efforts aimed at identifying and shutting down websites used for illegal purposes.

Programs

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

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).

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority

Country code top-level domain