Also called internationalized domain name · IDN domain
IDN, explained
Browsers display the native script while the DNS stores a label beginning with xn--: münchen.de is stored as xn--mnchen-3ya.de, and the Russian extension .рф as xn--p1ai. IDNs exist at both levels, as second-level names in many extensions and as entire IDN extensions. The first IDN country-code extensions, all in Arabic script, went live on May 5, 2010 for Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Each registry restricts which scripts and characters it accepts.
For investors, IDNs are a local-market bet with thin liquidity. Buyers are mostly businesses in that language market, the buyer pool is small, and support in email and some software is still uneven, so resale is slower than for Latin-script names. Mixed scripts carry abuse risk: a character from another alphabet can mimic a Latin letter and copy a brand, which is why browsers often display suspicious names in Punycode and why UDRP panels treat non-Latin or accented copies of a mark as confusingly similar. Buy IDNs only in languages and markets you know.
Example. An Arabic-speaking investor registers a common Arabic word as an IDN .com, knowing it is stored in the DNS as an xn-- string and that buyers will mostly be regional businesses.
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