RE: [bc-gnso] Update: Contention sets for new gTLDs

["Ron Andruff" <randruff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

My, my. We are venturing into the theatre of the absurd.  One wonders who
gave the "international expert panel" their brief?  This cannot stand or,
indeed, Steve, the damage will be vastly more far reaching than a poor
reflection on ICANN.

 

Kind regards,

 

RA

 

Ronald N. Andruff

RNA <http://www.rnapartners.com>  Partners, Inc.

  _____  

From: owner-bc-gnso@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-bc-gnso@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Steve DelBianco
Sent: Friday, March 01, 2013 6:50 PM
To: bc - GNSO list
Subject: [bc-gnso] Update: Contention sets for new gTLDs

 

Wanted you all to see this.   I think it will reflect poorly on ICANN's
expansion of TLDs. 

 

ICANN hired an international expert panel to scour 1900 new TLD strings and
determine which were confusingly similar, so they could be combines in the
same contention set.  

 

This is to ensure we don't delegate 2 TLD strings that would confuse
Internet users because they are too similar.  I expected, for example, that
the applications received for .hotel and .hotels would be in the same
contention set, since it would be confusing for users to have both TLDs out
there.  (It would increase the cost of defensive registrations, too, since
hotels would have to buy domains in both TLDs.  )

 

After several months of careful study, ICANN's experts published their
contention sets yesterday. (link
<http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-26feb13-en.htm> )  

 

They "identified" 230 "exact match contention sets" where multiple
applicants sought the exact same string.

 

And they found just 2 "non-exact match contention sets"  (unicom and
unicorm; hoteis and hotels )

 

Unbelievably, they did not consider the singular and plural versions of key
words to be confusingly similar.  

 

This means we will get new TLDs for both the singular and plural versions of
keywords such as:

 

ACCOUNTANT ACCOUNTANTS

AUTO  AUTOS

CAR CARS

CAREER CAREERS

COUPON COUPONS

CRUISE CRUISES

DEAL DEALS

FAN FANS

GAME GAMES

GIFT GIFTS

HOME HOMES

HOTEL HOTELS

HOTEL HOTELES

KID KIDS

LOAN LOANS

MARKET MARKETS

NEW NEWS

PET PETS

PHOTO PHOTOS

REVIEW REVIEWS

SPORT SPORTS

TOUR TOURS

WEB WEBS

WORK WORKS

 

What are the implications for applicants?   Well, let's take an example.
The 2 Applicants for .GIFT just got a huge gift from ICANN when they were
not placed in the same contention set as the 2 applicants for .GIFTS

One of the 2 .GIFT guys must prevail in their "singular" contention set.
They can then proceed to delegation, as they planned.  Or they can negotiate
to be bought-out by the winning applicant from the plural contention set (
.GIFTS ).

In other words, many applicants dodged a bullet by escaping from contention
with their singular/plural form competitors.   My guess is they want to
explore ways to monetize their good fortune. 

 --

Steve DelBianco

Executive Director

NetChoice

http://www.NetChoice.org and http://blog.netchoice.org 

+1.202.420.7482