http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-4-15nov10-en.htm ________________________________ IDN Session in Cartagena 15 November 2010 ICANN is pleased to release a draft of updated IDN Guidelines for discussion and to inform an IDN session at the upcoming meeting in Cartagena. The session is intended to serve as an informational interaction between all those interested in IDN registrations, and with a focus on the recently revised IDNA protocol. In the session, various TLD registry representatives with IDN expertise will provide recommendations and experiences with implementation of IDNA protocol and IDN Guidelines. The session is intended to provide practical guidance for registries and registrars for the transition to the new IDNA protocol. The IDNA protocol is the technical standard that provides a basis for the implementation of IDNs for TLD registries, registrars and any software developers that wish to make IDNs available for their customers. The IDNA protocol references and some more details about the revision can be found here: http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/rfcs.htm The IDN Guidelines contains additional recommendations for practical implementation efforts of IDNs for all TLD registries and registrars. They are a requirement for both gTLD registries that support IDNs, and IDN ccTLD registries. The IDN Guidelines Revision Working Group (comprised of gTLD and ccTLD registries with IDN experience) has met via telephone conference meetings during the revision of the IDNA protocol, to ensure that the IDN Guidelines would be revised adequately to reflect the IDNA protocol revision. These meetings have resulted in a discussion draft version of the IDN Guidelines, published here to enable discussions at the upcoming session in Cartagena. Taking input from the session in Cartagena, the WG will meet to amend the discussion draft IDN Guidelines. Once agreed to by the WG members the revised version of the IDN Guidelines will be released for public comments. When settled by the community, the ICANN Board will consider the next official version of the IDN Guidelines for approval. The current version of the IDN Guidelines is available here: http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/implementation-guidelines.htm The discussion draft IDN Guidelines is available here: http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/idn-guidelines-discussion-draft-15nov10-e... Additional IDN sessions are scheduled for the Cartagena meeting. For final schedule and remote participation access information see: http://cartagena39.icann.org/sched-overview