[ALAC] Singular/Plural in new gTLDs

[Carlton Samuels]

Thanks for bringing this forth, Alan.  Yes to instigating the discussion in
the community, ALAC included, as well; we can always just forward Alan's
note to the regional lists.

 I can agree that the accepted definition of 'confusingly similar' narrows
the understanding of how perception works. But all handwringing aside, the
end result is likely negative impact on the end user. So, what do we do?

I read Evan's intervention closely and quite frankly, cannot find fault
with his analysis, including his take on the likely result of any ALAC
statement. The good thing is as Evan says; users will find alternatives to
mitigate the slight.  So I will not bounce the rubble. But I would support
a statement in abundant surety it is for 'political correctness' rather
than any expectation of meaningful change of course.

-Carlton


==============================
Carlton A Samuels
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*Strategy, Planning, Governance, Assessment & Turnaround*
=============================


On Tue, Sep 3, 2013 at 9:02 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
>
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