Dear WT4 Members, I have received a note from Sarmad Hussain, ICANN’s IDN Program Director, seeking to draw our attention to a public comment announcement: “The Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) Implementation Guidelines relate to the IDN registration policies and practices, designed to minimize the risk of cybersquatting and consumer confusion, to cater to the interests of communities using local languages and scripts. These guidelines are applicable to gTLD registries and registrars offering IDNs at the second level, and recommended for IDN ccTLDs. Following the Call for Community Experts, a Working Group (WG) was formed in Oct. 2015 to review the current version (3.0) of the IDN Implementation Guidelines, last updated in 2011. The WG has finalized its work and solicits feedback of the community on the IDN Implementation Guidelines 4.0, the proposed update to the current Guidelines. The direct link to the public comment is https://www.icann.org/public-comments/idn-guidelines-2017-03-03-en. The WG has also organized a detailed session on these guidelines at ICANN 58: see https://schedule.icann.org/event/9nmh/icann-gdd-idn-implementation-guidelines-wg-update.” While these guidelines are certainly relevant to existing registry operators that offer, or intend to offer, IDNs, staff and leadership thought it may also be relevant to WT4. These guidelines have been in development for some time now and we encourage you to review version 4.0. Best, Steve Steven Chan
 Sr. Policy Manager

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