Would be a great question if it is possible to work in today! From: sdelbianco@netchoice.org To: zahid@dndrc.com CC: bc-gnso@icann.org Subject: [bc-gnso] Question for the Board during new gTLD discussion today: contention between Singulars and Plurals Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2013 05:10:43 +0000 Zahid — in case you have an opportunity in this session with the Board, please ask about their reaction to the perplexing results on String Similarity: The results of ICANN's String confusion panel were that singular and plurals of the same string were not placed in the same contention sets. Concerns include: 1. Consumer confusion. Particularly when they hear a TLD in conversation or in the media, then can't remember if it was singular or plural. 2. Defensive registrations in 25 additional TLDs 3. Terrible Precedent: applicants in future rounds could propose plurals of established TLDs (.nets, .books, .apps ) 4. Reflects poorly on the gTLD expansion Background: After several months of careful study, ICANN's experts published their contention sets on 28-Feb. (link) They "identified" 230 "exact match contention sets" where multiple applicants sought the exact same string. And they found just 2 "non-exact match contention sets" (unicom and unicorm; hoteis and hotels ) Unbelievably, they did not consider the singular and plural versions of key words to be confusingly similar. This means we will get new TLDs for both the singular and plural versions of keywords such as: ACCOUNTANT ACCOUNTANTS AUTO AUTOS CAR CARS CAREER CAREERS COUPON COUPONS CRUISE CRUISES DEAL DEALS FAN FANS GAME GAMES GIFT GIFTS HOME HOMES HOTEL HOTELS HOTEL HOTELES KID KIDS LOAN LOANS MARKET MARKETS NEW NEWS PET PETS PHOTO PHOTOS REVIEW REVIEWS SPORT SPORTS TOUR TOURS WEB WEBS WORK WORKS