[council] Regarding string requirements for new gTLDs

["Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 Hello All,

ICANN recently called for Public Comments on DNS Stability: The Effect
of New gTLDs on the Internet Domain Name System.

http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-06feb08.htm 

This is actually part of the implementation of the new gTLD
recommendations.  One of the recommendations was around ensuring that
strings added to the root don't have technical issues.


Below is the current implementation suggested by ICANN staff for
comment.

(1) Rules for what characters are allowed in strings:

- Labels must consist only of ASCII LDH characters (letters, digits, and
hyphen).

- Labels must be 63 characters or less.

- Labels must not be made up entirely of digits.

- Labels featuring hyphens in the third and fourth character positions
must be valid Punycode labels using the approved IDNA prefix.

- Labels must not begin or end with a hyphen.

- Labels must not begin with the characters "0x" followed by a
hexadecimal character.


(2) Regarding file extensions (e.g .exe etc)

- it is the recommendation of the ICANN technical staff to allow
applications for TLD strings that may also be commonly used for file
extensions.


Regards,
Bruce Tonkin