ICANN looks at String Similarity

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ICANN Must Now Decide String Similarity
Question<http://www.circleid.com/posts/20130820_icann_must_now_decide_string_similarity_question/>

   - Aug 20, 2013 9:12 AM PDT
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By *Statton Hammock <http://www.circleid.com/members/4194/>*

Yesterday, a decision on a string confusion objection was reached by a
dispute resolution provider that resulted in a scenario that ICANN and the
Applicant Guidebook had not addressed -- conflicting opinions have been
rendered by expert panelists ruling on the exact same pair of strings. One
of our applications now hangs in the balance.

The expert panelist for the International Centre for Dispute Resolution
(ICDR) assigned to decide the string confusion objection filed by VeriSign
against United TLD's .CAM application, issued a
decision<http://unitedtld.com/icann-must-now-decide-string-similarity-question/50-504-t-00229-13-determination/>sustaining
VeriSign's objection that .CAM and .COM are confusingly similar.
This decision effectively prevents United TLD's application from moving
forward in the application process.

Regardless of whether one believes the expert's reasoning was sound or
erroneous, the decision should move ICANN and the community into action
because last week the ICDR issued two
decisions<http://images.go.adr.org/Web/AmericanArbitrationAssociation/%7B650ecfd8-dcc1-451f-91d0-ebbd6f9652af%7D_ICANN_DRP_StringConfusion_Objections.pdf>which
denied VeriSign's objection against AC Webconnecting BV's application
and dotAgency Limited's application for the very same .CAM string.

String confusion objections are meant to be applicant agnostic and have
nothing to do with the registration or use of the new gTLD. What matters in
string confusion objections is whether a string is visually, aurally or,
according to ICANN's Applicant
Guidebook<http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/agb>,
otherwise "so nearly resembles another that it is likely to deceive or
cause confusion." Individuals may disagree on whether .CAM and .COM are
similarly confusing, but there can be no mistake that United TLD's .CAM
string, AC Webhosting's .CAM string, and dotAgency Limited's .CAM string
are all identical. *Either all three applications should move forward or
none should move forward*.

Kevin Murphy interviewed ICANN's Generic Domains Division President Akram
Atallah about this possible scenario in a blog
post<http://domainincite.com/14208-interview-atallah-on-new-gtld-objection-losers>last
week. Atallah explained that: "If we do get a case where we have a
situation where a singular and a plural string -- or any two strings
actually -- are found to be similar, the best outcome might be to go back to
the GNSO or to the community and get their read on that. That might be what
the board might request us to do."

ICANN needs to reconcile these three decisions so the outcome of .CAM is
treated consistently across all three applications.

*By Statton Hammock <http://www.circleid.com/members/4194/>,
Vice-President, Business & Legal Affairs, Demand Media*