[lac-discuss-en] Fwd: [ALAC] Singular/Plural in new gTLDs

Carlton Samuels carlton.samuels at gmail.com
Wed Sep 4 19:26:33 UTC 2013


Here's an issue where a broader discussion might be useful to decision.
 Alan has done a great job laying out the issues....and a case for an ALAC
statement.

-Carlton

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Carlton A Samuels
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*Strategy, Planning, Governance, Assessment & Turnaround*
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca>
Date: Tue, Sep 3, 2013 at 9:02 PM
Subject: [ALAC] Singular/Plural in new gTLDs
To: ALAC Working List <alac at atlarge-lists.icann.org>


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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