1. Chuck Gomes stating here that Verisign plans to allow the owners of IDN.com to essentially “alias” these domains so that they become IDN.IDN in relevant languages. Chuck said “if you were the registrant of [Name]-in-IDN.com, then no one else could register [Name]-in-IDN.com-in-IDN but you could activate the registration if you wanted to.” This flushed all doubts down the toilet that one day IDN.com won’t redirect to IDN.IDN.

2. The ccTLD Fast Track Process Launches. On November 16, 2009 applications were accepted for IDN.IDN ccTLDs. “This is one of the most exciting developments for the users of the Internet globally in years,” ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom said, “IDNs will enable the people [of] the world over to use domain name addresses in their own language.” He continued to say: “This is only the first step, but it is an incredibly big one and an historic move toward the internationalization of the Internet . . .”

3. IDN goes mainstream. ElliotsBlog features IDNs in a guest post here; Ron Jackson features IDNs in the November newsletter here; Rick Schwartz appears on IDNBlog here; Mike Berkens discusses here; and IDN experts like the Snows, Dave Wrixon, Lee Hodgson, and Tina Dam each have key public Q&As. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and others joined in the fun as every major media outlet has profiled the major forthcoming impact of IDNs.

4. Landmark IDN sales. The $100,749 sale of Büromöbel.de was followed by Gartenmöbel.de, which sold at €150,000 ($214,500) — enough for #34 on the 2009 Year-to-Date DNJournal chart.

5. CNNIC limits .CN owners to companies. China gives a frightening glimpse of how it could restrict domains when it prohibits individuals from owning .CN domains. (Article here).

6. IDNForums grows. IDN newbies have flooded IDNForums, especially since the Fast Track process began in November. The accompanying influx of fresh ideas is invaluable.

7. IDNTools is acquired and redeveloped. IDNTools had its punycode converter customized, .JPs were added to the droplist and other industrial IDNTools were updated to keep pace with the growing IDN market.

8. Volume 1 of IDNNewsletter is released. вода.com (“water” in Russian) sold for $2,000 via IDNNewsletter, cracking DNJournal’s sales chart. By introducing a new sales platform much-needed liquidity has been added to the IDN market.

I’m sure that I missed some events, and #7 and #8 were naturally important for me as a co-owner of both IDNNewsletter and IDNTools. Feel free to note any glaring omissions in the comments.