[ALAC] Singular/Plural in new gTLDs

Wed Sep 4 19:18:56 UTC 2013

At 04/09/2013 12:53 PM, Carlton Samuels 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.

Indeed!  That is what regional folks on the ALAC list are supposed to 
do if there is interest.

>  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.

I"m sure that users will survive most things. But we are supposed to 
be here to make things better. The fact that we cannot always do that 
should not eliminate our need to do so if we can (at least that is my take).

Alan

>-Carlton
>
>
>==============================
>Carlton A Samuels
>Mobile: 876-818-1799
>Strategy, Planning, Governance, Assessment & Turnaround
>=============================
>
>
>On Tue, Sep 3, 2013 at 9:02 PM, Alan Greenberg 
><<mailto:alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca>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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