International Domain Names (IDNs)
Language is the primary means for communicating information and knowledge online. While the content of a website can appear in any language, the domain name system (DNS) has historically been limited to the characters used in English (or ASCII). Since the majority of the world speaks a language other than English, this can present a significant barrier to Internet access for many people and cultures.
Since 1996, the Internet technical community has been developing standards necessary to create domain names in all scripts, for all languages. Today, a simple, efficient encoding method called Punycode is used to register domain names in native languages by translating non-ASCII characters into characters allowed in domain name labels (ASCII letters, digits and hyphens) and back again.
IDN registrations are processed by the .biz Registry strictly on the “first come, first served” basis. Equal opportunities for registering IDNs are provided to all parties regardless of their possible possession of other domain names.
Registrants are advised to carefully consider the potential confusion over the perception of equivalence between an accented Latin character and a sequence of other Latin characters (with or without accents). There exists no equivalence rule that can be applied universally as any such mappings are generally dependent on the language, culture and context in which an IDN is used.
All .biz domain names are subject to the Published Policies. It is your responsibility to ensure that you read and understand these policies as they apply to you. We may discontinue or amend any part or the whole of this policy from time to time.
Additional Information on IDN Policies:
- The Registry’s IDN implementation is fully compliant with ICANN’s IDN Guidelines version and all current RFCs, including 3454, 3490, 3491, and 3492.
- .biz IDN language tables can be found at http://www.iana.org/domains/idn-tables.
- All IDN registrations must include the appropriate language tag
Looking for the ability to register or offer a language not listed below? Please contact us to submit your suggestions and continue to check back often as we will update this page with additional information and IDN implementation timelines for .biz domain names.