Hi Katrina,

 

Thanks for this.

 

I am happy to volunteer (also considering my “long term” experience in the “confusing similarity” environment).

 

However, please note that I will be at work until 7 August and then, on holiday.

 

Therefore, happy to work until 7 August.

 

Best,

 

Giovanni

 

 

 

 

 

Dear all,

 

As you will have noticed, the GNSO's New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Working Group has produced its Initial Report, which includes material from the full Working Group and Work Tracks 1-4. This Report has been published for public comments on 3 July 2018 and closes on 5 September 2018.

 

Based on my initial read of the report and as suggested by Annebeth, I propose that we start working on a Council Statement to be submitted before 5 September 2018.

 

The statement should address at least the following topics:

- Use of 2-character Single Letter, Single Digit Combinations as gTLD strings,

- Proposals and additional work with respect to IDN gTLDs,

- Confusing similarity review under gTLD process.

 

If you agree, I will ask staff together with individual Councillors (any volunteers?) to prepare initial analysis of the proposals contained in the report. We could discuss the draft at our August meeting. I will reach out to individual Councillors to assist in the process.

 

Annebeth sent me an email sharing her concerns about the use of 2-character Single Letter, Single Digit Combinations as gTLD string. One of the topics in the report is around current restrictions on the use of certain strings (Reserved Names, section 2.7.1 of the Initial Report) in the first round of new gTLDs. Potentially relevant questions of the WG for the ccTLD community and ccNSO, relate to the reservation of the use of 2-character strings at the top level consisting of Single Letter, Single Digit Combinations. It is noted in the report that the policy recommendations allowed for this type of TLD; however, it was disallowed in the Applicant Guidebook, as were any TLDs that contained digits. During the deliberations of the WG there was some support for allowing this type of TLDs, in the absence of technical issues, though no agreement was reached.

 

In the report the following questions were raised: “Should the reservation of those strings be removed? Why or why not? Do you believe that any additional analysis is needed to ensure that these types of strings will not pose harm or risk to security and stability? Please explain.” Given the risk of confusing similarity between country codes and single character - single digit combination (for example .lv and .1v, .it and .1t, .8U and .BU, .CO/co and .C0/c0, etc.), I suggest we respond and provide input on this specific item. The suggestion could be that given the close relation with two-letter code-elements and confusing similarity issues involved either current reservation is maintained or, alternatively, further discussed under Work Track 5.

 

Second area to look into further relates to IDN (g)TLDs (section 2.7.5 of the Initial Report) and the proposals and questions contained in the report. Again this will most likely touch upon and may create overlaps with the Fast Track rules and proposed IDN ccTLD policy. Topics that needed to be addressed by both the GNSO and ccNSO in this area are:

- Use of single and two character IDNs. In case of the Fast Track or IDN ccTLD overall policy, the single or two character string needs to be a meaningful representation of the name of the country or territory.

- Development and impact of IDN variant management framework and related work, which is relevant for both the new gTLDs and IDN ccTLDs.

 

Finally, the third area that may benefit from our input to the proposals and questions concerns String Similarity Evaluations (section 2.7.4). As you (and some of you more than others) will recall, the ccNSO has gained considerable experience with these issues and has worked a lot on refining the method of confusing similarity evaluation under the Fast Track process. We will need to revisit it again when we review and update the proposed overall IDN ccTLD policy.  One of the issues might be increasing divergence between the methods and standard and criteria used. I do not know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, but in my view we definitely need to address it.

 

What are your thoughts? Anything else we should look into?

 

Thank you!

 

Kind regards,

 

]{atrina