The ICANN Board has approved most of a new policy governing the selection and removal of internationalized country-code top-level domains (IDN ccTLDs) and their variants, while rejecting provisions that would have allowed additional risk assessments for certain potentially confusing domain strings. The decision, adopted October 22, advances a long-running effort to establish permanent rules for country-code domains in multiple languages and scripts.

The policy will replace the existing IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process. Developed by the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO), it establishes procedures for selecting IDN ccTLD strings and their variants, as well as managing their delegation, transfer, revocation, and retirement. The framework also requires that an IDN ccTLD and its delegatable variants be assigned to the same entity.

Under the Board resolutions, ICANN adopted the ccNSO recommendations except Section 7.8 and related provisions concerning a Risk Treatment Appraisal Procedure. The rejected mechanism would have addressed requests for IDN ccTLD strings found confusingly similar, solely when displayed in uppercase, to existing top-level domains, reserved names, or two-character ASCII strings.

Security concerns drove the exception. The proposed procedure would have permitted applicants to submit mitigation measures for review by a specialized panel. According to the Board, some remedies could require separate TLD operators to coordinate registration practices, potentially including bundled registrations and additional technical or administrative obligations. The Board concluded that such arrangements could introduce unacceptable complexity and risks to DNS security and stability.

The remaining policy allows applicants whose proposed strings fail similarity evaluations to seek alternative strings. ICANN considers the rejected provisions separable from the broader framework, allowing implementation of the approved recommendations to proceed.

The disagreement now returns to the ccNSO. Under ICANN’s Bylaws, the Board must provide a formal explanation for rejecting a ccNSO policy recommendation. The Board and ccNSO Council will then discuss whether a mutually acceptable solution can be reached. The Council may affirm or modify its recommendations, with any supplemental proposal requiring further Board consideration.

The policy originated in work launched in 2020 following ICANN’s 2019 recommendations on managing IDN variants. The ccNSO submitted its policy package to the Board in June 2024 after community consultation and membership approval. The framework also extends eligibility to IDNs in Latin script, which the existing Fast Track Process does not support.

Implementation remains subject to further work. ICANN must develop an implementation plan with cost and resource estimates, while certain provisions require amendments to its Bylaws. Those amendments remain subject to the applicable approval procedures, including the Empowered Community’s role.

The decision establishes the foundation for permanent IDN country-code domain rules, but the treatment of uppercase-only confusing similarity and the precise timetable for implementation remain unresolved.