[ALAC] Singular/Plural in new gTLDs

Wed Sep 4 17:22:16 UTC 2013

I would note, again, that consumers are already used to endless
near-collisions in DNS namespace, based on experience at the second level.

As one of many examples. "car.com" and "cars.com" point to
directly-competing entities both marketing primarily on their domain names.
It's one thing when a typo gets you to a squatter's park page, quite
another when it goes to a completely different website offering the *exact
same thing* as you were looking for, and there's no attempt to mislead.

Consumers are used to that. By now, I'm fairly certain that end-users would
NOT trust "genericword.com" to be a definitive source of information -- let
alone sales -- regarding that word. (Of course, having research regarding
such trust levels would be EXTREMELY useful in guiding future outcomes, yet
ICANN refuses to do such research. I suspect it is terrified of the likely
results)

- Evan

On 4 September 2013 12:53, Carlton Samuels <carlton.samuels at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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
> Mobile: 876-818-1799
> *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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-- 
Evan Leibovitch
Toronto Canada

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