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
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.
ACCOUNTANT ACCOUNTANTSAUTO AUTOSCAR CARSCAREER CAREERSCOUPON COUPONSCRUISE CRUISESDEAL DEALSFAN FANSGAME GAMESGIFT GIFTSHOME HOMESHOTEL HOTELSHOTEL HOTELESKID KIDSLOAN LOANSMARKET MARKETSNEW NEWSPET PETSPHOTO PHOTOSREVIEW REVIEWSSPORT SPORTSTOUR TOURSWEB WEBSWORK WORKS