Re: [gnso-idng] rethinking IDN gTLDs

[Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Gomes, Chuck wrote:
> Avri,
>
> One of the main purposes of the restriction on confusingly similar
> strings was to avoid user confusion.  We talked about that a lot.  If
> the chances of user confusion are null, why would the strings be a
> concern?
>
> Chuck 

The property we (Edmond and I) were attempting to convey to Peter and 
Paul circa the Delhi RyC meeting, was that the definition of 
"confusingly similar" is incorrect where it finds any two SC/TC 
equivalent sequences "confusingly similar". The correct definition is 
that there are SC/TC equivalent sequences which are "non-confusingly 
similar", to the SC/TC informed user, which the authors of the current 
definition are not.
More generally than to just the SC/TC equivalence issue, dealt with at 
the CDNC level by bundling, and present in the "variants" issue for 
some IDN applications, now in DAGv3, is intentionally similarity, 
where the process described in the DAGvX is incapable of being 
informed that intentional similarity is present, and not presumptively 
harmful.
My point is that we're not simply discussing the chances of user 
confusion being harmful to the user, and unlikely, but also where user 
confusion is beneficial to the user, and at present, presumed a harm.
There is "confusion" where the "color" and "colour" registries are 
operated by non-cooperating actors (not the policy choice by the CDNC 
members), there is not where the same two registries are run by 
cooperating actors, and it is likely that if the actors are infact a 
single operator, that harm does not result from the existence of a 
"color" and "colour" label.
The Anglo vs American spelling was chosen as an illustrative example.

The absurd case is an applicant for "color" and "colour" going into 
auction against itself to determine which member of this string 
contention set shall be entered into the root, at the permanent 
exclusion of all other variations of "colo[u]r".
Some knowledge, if available early in the evaluation process, leads to 
better outcomes than its concealment until after it becomes useful.
Eric