Afnic to release IDN domain names.
Posted on 6 February 2012
Afnic has published their IDN specifications last Friday. This is the last step before the sunrise period with the ‘grandfathering’ rule that starts the third of May. This move will extend the number of characters which can used to create a domain name to 67, versus the 37 now. The new IDN rules apply to all the extensions under control of Afnic (.fr, .re, .tf, .wf, .pm and .yt).
The entity filing an IDN must hold an ASCII-equivalent domain name for the transaction to be accepted. However, if the ASCII equivalent has not yet been filed, it will be possible …