This is an issue on which the BC has been vocal since Beijing, along with advice from the GAC to "reconsider" the singular/plural decisions.
ICANN's New gTLD Program Committee "reconsidered" in its 25-Jun Resolution: “NGPC has determined that no changes are needed to the existing mechanisms in the Applicant Guidebook to address potential consumer confusion resulting from allowing singular
and plural versions of the same string.”
As many BC members have discussed on list, the Dispute Resolution panels are generally upholding the originally flawed findings of the experts. In one case, Dispute Resolution providers disagreed on the exact same string. (
link)
There's been an impressive discussion on BC list. Question is, What can the BC do now?
This element of GAC Beijing advice was never posted for public comment, so we could insist upon that as a matter of process. Moreover, events indicate that experts and dispute resolution panels are not uniformly interpreting the Guidebook standard (“so
nearly resembles another that it is likely to deceive or cause confusion.”) So it's time to clarify the guidebook and re-do the string similarity evaluations. There's a limited class of strings at issue, and the same panels could act quickly once they receive
clearer instructions.
Also, we could enlist ALAC support to ask GAC to reiterate its concern over user confusion among singular and plural forms of the same TLD. It was disappointing that GAC didn't mention singular/plural in its Durban Advice, but events now vindicate the
GAC's original concern about consumer confusion.