Dear Alan, I support doing something about this. 2 thoughts: 1. A positive result of intervention on this matter where singular and plural strings are deemed similarly confusing (and thus not allowed) will result in the strings implicated to be in contention. This will no doubt heat up the string contention and objection resolution process. No valued judgment in this, just stating an observation of what to expect. 2. There is a practice in IDN variant management that can theoretically be applied to avoid applicants from having to "buy" two confusingly similar names (if the policy is not to allow singular and plural names). This is the practice/rule of allocating both names to an applicant and then blocking one of those names or allowing both names (perhaps for the price of one - need to check on whether they charge for the "variants" - I suspect not). And yes, the IP-interested folks might have something to say about it depending on whether they are in favor of over-protection or less. Best regards, Rinalia On Sep 4, 2013 12:29 PM, "Alan Greenberg" <alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca> wrote:
That could be done. But first I wanted to find out if there was any interest within the ALAC. If there is little interest, I will do something on my own, but with far less impact than if it is advice from the ALAC.
Also note that this is an issue that is extremely time-sensitive, since if the issue is to be re-opened, it will have to be done very quickly.
Alan
At 03/09/2013 11:58 PM, Salanieta Tamanikaiwaimaro wrote:
Dear Alan,
Thank you for monitoring this space. I would suggest opening the discussions within the broader At Large to solicit views and feedback, preferably if the discussions could ensue on both the mailing list as well as the wiki before a statement is drafted.
Kind Regards, Sala
Sent from my iPad
On Sep 4, 2013, at 2:02 PM, Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca> wrote:
On 24 June 2013 as requested by the GAC, the Board New gTLD Program Committee (NGPC) considered the issue of singular and plural stings being confusingly similar and decided to let the original process stand (subject to individual objections). The record of the decision can be found at http://www.icann.org/en/**groups/board/documents/** minutes-new-gtld-25jun13-en.**htm#2.d<http://www.icann.org/en/groups/board/documents/minutes-new-gtld-25jun13-en.h...>. Of particular note is a statement issued by three Board members (George Sadowsky, Olga Madruga-Forti and Cherine Chalaby) who supported the decision but regretted that, based on the Applicant Guidebook wording, they did not believe that they had the leeway to vote against it. One Board member (Mike Silber) did oppose the decision.
A central issue is that "confusingly similar" test relies purely on visual similarity and in the eyes of most (who were involved in the decision), adding an "S" makes it a recognizably different string.
The salient part of the Applicant Guidebook ( http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/**applicants/agb/guidebook-full-** 04jun12-en.pdf<http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/agb/guidebook-full-04jun12-en.pdf>) is section 2.2.1.1 of Module 2.
This review involves a preliminary comparison of each applied-for gTLD string against existing TLDs, Reserved Names (see subsection 2.2.1.2), and other applied-for strings. The objective of this review is to prevent user confusion and loss of confidence in the DNS resulting from delegation of many similar strings.
Note: In this Applicant Guidebook, "similar" means strings so similar that they create a probability of user confusion if more than one of the strings is delegated into the root zone.
The visual similarity check that occurs during Initial Evaluation is intended to augment the objection and dispute resolution process (see Module 3, Dispute Resolution Procedures) that addresses all types of similarity.
I believe that the NGPC decision was incorrect. The problem is the belief that "visual similarity" relies purely on what, in computer terminology, would be called "pattern matching". Pattern matching is certainly part of human perception, but it is not limited to that. At issue is whether two strings will be PERCEIVED as being equivalent, and perception is a far more complex (and less understood) issue.
The real issue is that if you earlier found something at hilton.hotel, or had decided that the reviews at sheraton.hotel were something you trusted, will you later remember if it was really those sites or hilton.hotels or sheraton.hotels?
At best, this could be considered a means of forcing anyone who registers a domain with .hotel or .hotels to register both, and map both of them to the same site. If that were to happen, the predictions of the Intellectual Property Constituency would be borne out, and all of those using these TLDs would have to make double the investment in domain names (presuming this is even possible with differing rules for each TLD). But the impact on users would be minimal.
But since we cannot guarantee that both TLDs will remain forever in sync, we do have a user problem. Once cannot expect the typical Internet user to be able to differentiate between two such name spaces, and therefore I believe that we have a genuine case of "confusingly similar". And one that will arguably have as much or more impact on real Internet users, the ones that we are supposed to be here to defend, than any other case I can recall in my 7 year involvement with ICANN At-Large.
If others on the ALAC agree, I would be happy to create a statement reflecting what I have said here, that we can, in our formal Advisory Committee role, forward as Advice to the Board.
Alan
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