ICANN seeks public input on initial report of the Latin Script Diacritics policy process

The Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Council of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has launched a public comment process on the Initial Report of the Latin Script Diacritics Policy Development Process Working Group.

The report outlines 54 preliminary policy recommendations and accompanying implementation guidance. These focus on situations where a generic top-level domain (gTLD) written using basic American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) characters, such as ‘.example’, is not formally considered a variant of its Latin script diacritic version, such as one including accented characters. At present, ICANN’s policy framework does not provide a clear mechanism that would allow a single registry operator to run both forms of such a gTLD at the same time.

Diacritics are accent marks used in many languages that rely on the Latin alphabet to modify pronunciation or meaning. While the Domain Name System is technically limited to ASCII characters, it supports Internationalized Domain Names, including Latin characters with diacritics, through an encoding system known as Punycode. In practice, this means users may encounter both accented and non-accented versions of domain names, even though these are treated differently at the technical and policy levels.

Between 2021 and 2024, the GNSO Council adopted policy recommendations defining how variant domain names are managed at the top and second levels. However, those policies did not address cases where a base ASCII gTLD and its Latin diacritic form are not considered variants under existing rules. The Latin Script Diacritics Policy Development Process was launched to examine this gap and to determine whether a new mechanism is needed.

The working group was formally chartered in December 2024 and began its work in early 2025, with a narrowly defined scope focused on this single policy question. Its deliberations have now resulted in the Initial Report, which is being published to gather feedback from the broader ICANN community.

The public comment period will remain open for 40 days. To support structured input, ICANN has provided a guided submission form that allows commenters to link their feedback directly to specific sections of the report. After the consultation closes, ICANN staff will prepare a summary of the comments received, and the working group will review them during ICANN85 in Mumbai.

Based on this feedback, the group will decide whether to revise its preliminary recommendations before producing a Final Report. That report will then be submitted to the GNSO Council for consideration, following a consensus call among working group members.