[ALAC] Singular/Plural in new gTLDs

Wed Sep 4 07:41:42 UTC 2013

Hi Alan.

Thanks for posting the Board activity. My comments:

   - This is not an issue that has taken anyone by surprise. It seems that
   the Board's reluctance to overrule the existing AGB indicates a fear of
   legal action from applicants who made good-faith applications and will
   argue that they should be entitled to do as they please within existing
   limits.

   - The nature of the Board respond also indicates that this issue is way
   too late to properly debate now, and that any remedy now would be tacked-on
   as opposed to designed-in.

   - Like dotless domains, public interest clauses, closed generics and
   proper community evaluation, this is just one of dozens -- maybe hundreds
   -- of significant public-trust-related TLD matters that were either
   deliberately considered and bypassed/deferred, or ignored in the hope they
   would be forgotten. Certainly at least some of the many conspiracy theories
   in this regard are probably accurate.

   - The public is reluctantly getting used to such confusion anyway;
   witness the *deliberate* marketing of Columbia's .co ccTLD as a cheeky
   lookalike for dot-com. Now, you and I know that ICANN has no authority over
   this; but such subtlety is lost on the public. (ICANN's cowardice in not
   asserting standards for those ccTLDs acting as international generics has
   IMO already damaged public confidence in the DNS.) As a result, there will
   be no end-user outcry if ".hotel" exists alongside ".hotels", even though
   we know this to be confusing. Since expectations of ICANN's competence at
   DNS stewardship are already so low, more such incidents will be simply
   acknowledged, complained about and worked around, probably resulting in
   accelerated end-user reliance on search engines rather domain names(1).

I agree that the acceptance of plurals, and the dependence of only computer
matching to determine string similarity, is wrong. But I also believe that
this discussion is many years too late, probably by design. If even
sensible people on the Board believe their hands are tied by the current
status of the AGB guidelines, our calling for change will accomplish very
little except to make us feel like we at least tried. For that reason I
would support such a statement but would not put much effort into it; a
nice expression of principle that will be binned the moment it is published.

At this point, IMO, were ALAC wish to be courageous and honest in its
end-user advocacy role regarding the new gTLD expansion, it would call for
an immediate freeze on all applications that are not IDNs or closed
dot-brands, pending:

   1. Evaluating the rollout of the IDNs and closed dot-brands, paying
   special attention on unintended consequences as well as the scalability of
   ICANN's compliance and other infrastructure components;
   2. Sorting out the MANY identified loose ends in the AGB, with an
   explicit role in the resulting consensus for the GAC and ALAC

Such advice would also probably be ignored, and would likely keep ICANN in
court for a while should it be heeded. But IMO the alternative for ICANN in
the medium term is either expropriation (at the hands of governments) or
irrelevance (at the hands of end users), or both.

- Evan

(1) Indeed, now that the public is increasingly turning away from domain
names, there is revived competition and innovation happening in search
engines -- Bing, Baidu, and my current, privacy-friendly, search engine of
choice <https://duckduckgo.com/>.

On 4 September 2013 00:53, Rinalia Abdul Rahim <rinalia.abdulrahim at gmail.com
> wrote:

> Dear Alan,
>
> I support doing something about this.
>
> 2 thoughts:
> 1. A positive result of intervention on this matter where singular and
> plural strings are deemed similarly confusing (and thus not allowed) will
> result in the strings implicated to be in contention. This will no doubt
> heat up the string contention and objection resolution process. No valued
> judgment in this, just stating an observation of what to expect.
>
> 2. There is a practice in IDN variant management that can theoretically be
> applied to avoid applicants from having to "buy" two confusingly similar
> names (if the policy is not to allow singular and plural names). This is
> the practice/rule of allocating both names to an applicant and then
> blocking one of those names or allowing both names (perhaps for the price
> of one - need to check on whether they charge for the "variants" - I
> suspect not). And yes, the IP-interested folks might have something to say
> about it depending on whether they are in favor of over-protection or less.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Rinalia
> On Sep 4, 2013 12:29 PM, "Alan Greenberg" <alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca>
> wrote:
>
> > That could be done. But first I wanted to find out if there was any
> > interest within the ALAC. If there is little interest, I will do
> something
> > on my own, but with far less impact than if it is advice from the ALAC.
> >
> > Also note that this is an issue that is extremely time-sensitive, since
> if
> > the issue is to be re-opened, it will have to be done very quickly.
> >
> > Alan
> >
> > At 03/09/2013 11:58 PM, Salanieta Tamanikaiwaimaro wrote:
> >
> >> Dear Alan,
> >>
> >> Thank you for monitoring this space. I would suggest opening the
> >> discussions within the broader At Large to solicit views and feedback,
> >> preferably if the discussions could ensue on both the mailing list as
> well
> >> as the wiki before a statement is drafted.
> >>
> >> Kind Regards,
> >> Sala
> >>
> >> Sent from my iPad
> >>
> >> On Sep 4, 2013, at 2:02 PM, Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> > On 24 June 2013 as requested by the GAC, the Board New gTLD Program
> >> Committee (NGPC) considered the issue of singular and plural stings
> being
> >> confusingly similar and decided to let the original process stand
> (subject
> >> to individual objections). The record of the decision can be found at
> >> http://www.icann.org/en/**groups/board/documents/**
> >> minutes-new-gtld-25jun13-en.**htm#2.d<
> http://www.icann.org/en/groups/board/documents/minutes-new-gtld-25jun13-en.htm#2.d
> >.
> >> Of particular note is a statement issued by three Board members (George
> >> Sadowsky, Olga Madruga-Forti and Cherine Chalaby) who supported the
> >> decision but regretted that, based on the Applicant Guidebook wording,
> they
> >> did not believe that they had the leeway to vote against it. One Board
> >> member (Mike Silber) did oppose the decision.
> >> >
> >> > A central issue is that "confusingly similar" test relies purely on
> >> visual similarity and in the eyes of most (who were involved in the
> >> decision), adding an "S" makes it a recognizably different string.
> >> >
> >> > The salient part of the Applicant Guidebook (
> >> http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/**applicants/agb/guidebook-full-**
> >> 04jun12-en.pdf<
> http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/agb/guidebook-full-04jun12-en.pdf
> >)
> >> is section 2.2.1.1 of Module 2.
> >> >
> >> >> This review involves a preliminary comparison of each applied-for
> gTLD
> >> string against existing TLDs, Reserved Names (see subsection 2.2.1.2),
> and
> >> other applied-for strings. The objective of this review is to prevent
> user
> >> confusion and loss of confidence in the DNS resulting from delegation of
> >> many similar strings.
> >> >>
> >> >> Note: In this Applicant Guidebook, "similar" means strings so similar
> >> that they create a probability of user confusion if more than one of the
> >> strings is delegated into the root zone.
> >> >>
> >> >> The visual similarity check that occurs during Initial Evaluation is
> >> intended to augment the objection and dispute resolution process (see
> >> Module 3, Dispute Resolution Procedures) that addresses all types of
> >> similarity.
> >> >
> >> > I believe that the NGPC decision was incorrect. The problem is the
> >> belief that "visual similarity" relies purely on what, in computer
> >> terminology, would be called "pattern matching". Pattern matching is
> >> certainly part of human perception, but it is not limited to that. At
> issue
> >> is whether two strings will be PERCEIVED as being equivalent, and
> >> perception is a far more complex (and less understood) issue.
> >> >
> >> > The real issue is that if you earlier found something at hilton.hotel,
> >> or had decided that the reviews at sheraton.hotel were something you
> >> trusted, will you later remember if it was really those sites or
> >> hilton.hotels or sheraton.hotels?
> >> >
> >> > At best, this could be considered a means of forcing anyone who
> >> registers a domain with .hotel or .hotels to register both, and map
> both of
> >> them to the same site. If that were to happen, the predictions of the
> >> Intellectual Property Constituency would be borne out, and all of those
> >> using these TLDs would have to make double the investment in domain
> names
> >> (presuming this is even possible with differing rules for each TLD). But
> >> the impact on users would be minimal.
> >> >
> >> > But since we cannot guarantee that both TLDs will remain forever in
> >> sync, we do have a user problem. Once cannot expect the typical Internet
> >> user to be able to differentiate between two such name spaces, and
> >> therefore I believe that we have a genuine case of "confusingly
> similar".
> >> And one that will arguably have as much or more impact on real Internet
> >> users, the ones that we are supposed to be here to defend, than any
> other
> >> case I can recall in my 7 year involvement with ICANN At-Large.
> >> >
> >> > If others on the ALAC agree, I would be happy to create a statement
> >> reflecting what I have said here, that we can, in our formal Advisory
> >> Committee role, forward as Advice to the Board.
> >> >
> >> > Alan
> >> >
> >> > ______________________________**_________________
> >> > ALAC mailing list
> >> > ALAC at atlarge-lists.icann.org
> >> > https://atlarge-lists.icann.**org/mailman/listinfo/alac<
> https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac>
> >> >
> >> > At-Large Online: http://www.atlarge.icann.org
> >> > ALAC Working Wiki: https://community.icann.org/**
> >> display/atlarge/At-Large+**Advisory+Committee+(ALAC)<
> https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/At-Large+Advisory+Committee+(ALAC)
> >
> >>
> >
> > ______________________________**_________________
> > ALAC mailing list
> > ALAC at atlarge-lists.icann.org
> > https://atlarge-lists.icann.**org/mailman/listinfo/alac<
> https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac>
> >
> > At-Large Online: http://www.atlarge.icann.org
> > ALAC Working Wiki:
> https://community.icann.org/**display/atlarge/At-Large+
> > **Advisory+Committee+(ALAC)<
> https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/At-Large+Advisory+Committee+(ALAC)
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> ALAC mailing list
> ALAC at atlarge-lists.icann.org
> https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac
>
> At-Large Online: http://www.atlarge.icann.org
> ALAC Working Wiki:
> https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/At-Large+Advisory+Committee+(ALAC)
>

-- 
Evan Leibovitch
Toronto Canada

Em: evan at telly dot org
Sk: evanleibovitch
Tw: el56