FYI Chuck From: Diane Schroeder [mailto:diane.schroeder@icann.org] Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 4:16 PM To: Glen de Saint Géry Cc: Kurt Pritz; Gomes, Chuck; David Olive; Liz Gasster; Stéphane Van Gelder; olgac@fibertel.com.ar; Glen Subject: Re: GNSO letter arising from GNSO Council requesting a change to Module 2 of the Draft Applicant Guidebook Dear Glen - the communication below has been sent to the ICANN Board for their information. Regards, Diane On Jul 16, 2010, at 12:03 PM, Glen de Saint Géry wrote: To: Kurt Pritz and members of the ICANN New GTLD Implementation Team, CC: ICANN Board The GNSO Council requests a change to Module 2 of the Draft Applicant Guidebook. Specifically, we request that the section on "Outcomes of the String Similarity Review" be amended to allow applicants to request an Extended Review under applicable terms similar to those provided for other issues such as "DNS Stability: String Review Procedure". We further request that a section be added on ³String Similarity - Extended Review² that parallels other such sections in Module 2. This request is seen as urgent because there are conditions under which it may be justified for applicants for a string which has been denied further processing based on confusing similarity by the Initial Evaluation to request an extended evaluation. This Extended Review would evaluate extenuating circumstances in the application which may be such that the similarity is not actually detrimental. This may occur, inter alia, in cases such as: . The same Registry Operator (for an existing gTLD or a proposed new gTLD) could apply for a string that is similar to an existing or applied for string in a manner that is not detrimentally similar from a user point of view. For example, it is possible that an applicant could apply for both a gTLD with a conventional ASCII label and a corresponding internationalized gTLD (IDN gTLD) that could be deemed to be similar but not cause the detrimental confusion that the GNSO recommendation was trying to avoid. . A situation where there is an agreement between a new applicant Registry Operator and the Registry Operator of an existing gTLD that allows for better service for the users in the geographical area where the new gTLD will be offered. For example, MuseDoma, the Registry Operator for .museum could enter into an agreement with a new gTLD applicant to offer an IDN version of .museum for a specific language community. The two strings might be judged to be similar but their delegation would not cause detrimental confusion. We thank you for your prompt attention to this GNSO Council request. Respectfully submitted on behalf of the GNSO Council Chair Chuck Gomes Glen de Saint Géry GNSO Secretariat gnso.secretariat@gnso.icann.org http://gnso.icann.org Diane Schroeder Director of Board Support ICANN 4676 Admiralty Way, Ste. 330 Marina del Rey, CA 90292 diane.schroeder@icann.org Office Phone - +1-310-823-9358 Fax - +1-310-823-8649 Mobile - +1-562-644-2524