The top-level domain (TLD) ‘xn—3e0b707e’ is a versatile Internet country code that is specified for South Korea. ‘xn—3e0b707e’ is an ‘Internationalized Country Code Top-Level Domain’ (IDN ccTLD) that uses the Punycode transcription system to represent the ‘.한국’ (pronounced as ‘hanguk’), which means Korea in the Korean language and script. Here, ‘xn—’ refers to the ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) compatible encoding prefix used in the domain name system of the Internet for the non-ASCII encoding, in this case, the Korean script.
The background of establishing this top-level domain is related to the Internet revolution globally. As more non-English speaking countries began gaining access to the Internet, the problem of language barriers arose. Many countries use scripts that do not conform to the standard ASCII, and the code top-level domain system was only available in English.
The solution introduced by ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) was Punycode. This is a way to encode the internationalized domain names (containing non-ASCII characters) as completely valid ASCII codes. In the case of the Korean TLD, ‘.한국’ is encoded as ‘xn—3e0b707e’.
The main purpose of the xn—3e0b707e (‘.한국’) code is to make it easier and more comfortable for Korean people and businesses to use their native script while using the Internet. Internet users in South Korea were previously limited to using English to search for local Internet sites. However, the introduction of ‘.한국’ has given them an option to conduct Internet activities in their native Korean language.
For example, a business named “서울식품” (Seoul Food) in South Korea, rather than using the romanized form of its name in the URL, can provide a more localized experience to its users by using a domain like “서울식품.한국”. This allows Korean users to navigate the web more seamlessly without the need to understand or use Roman characters.
Any business or organization can apply for a .한국 domain if they meet the criteria set by the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA). The authority responsible for the management of ‘.한국’ is the ‘Korean Network Information Center’ (KRNIC), a functional group within KISA.
These details are as per the ICANN reports (https://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt) and KISA (https://xn—3e0b707e/), the regulatory authorities who manage the ‘.한국’ top-level domain.
