[gnso-idng] 3rd Draft on Sting Similarity

[Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

3rd draft version

I've removed the examples, both meaningful and cooperative, and made 
what I understand to be the changes suggested by Avri.

===
Councilors,

During the past weeks the participants in the gnso-idng@xxxxxxxxx 
mailing list (IDNG) have discussed, on the mailing list and in 
conference calls, aspects of the situation which exists following the 
Board's vote at Seoul.
One area of discussion which raises a policy issue is confusingly 
similar strings. Because this seems an area where the obvious right 
thing has already been done we need to draw attention to two aspects 
which have been overlooked.
In pseudo-haiku, the problem we present to the Council is:

two strings
one meaning
one applicant
ouch!


cooperation
considered
harmfull
ouch!


First, the current definition of "similar" is now more complex than 
"visual similarity", and to some appears to include "meaning", which 
may be so broad a definition as to create more ills than it cures.
Second, the underlying assumption in the evaluation process is that 
each evaluation is independent of all other evaluations, even if they 
are from the same or associated applicants.
These, a rule (about a string in an application) and a meta-rule 
(about all applications), have a consequence which we suggest is not 
desirable.
Under the current rules in DAGv3, only one application who's string is 
a member of a contention set may proceed towards delegation. Whether 
the choice is by order of creation, or amongst contemporaries, by 
community evaluation and/or auction, the result is the same. One 
member of an (extended, in the sense of including existing registries) 
contention set thrives. All others fail.
This is the proper and correct end, except for one case which is more 
likely to exist for applications for IDN strings than for restricted 
ASCII (letters, digits, hyphen) strings. That case is where two, or 
more, applications for similar strings are advanced by a single 
applicant, or two or more cooperating applicants.
The fundamental rational is that confusion is harmful. This rational 
is not universally correct. There are instances where confusion 
results in no harm, and more importantly, where "confusion" creates 
benefit.
It is possible that applicants for two or more similar strings could, 
upon failure, resort to extended evaluation, where the cause of the 
failure is similarity with an existing TLD. Present registries seeking 
similar IDN delegations could simply cost in the extended evaluation 
cost as part of the application cost. This is inelegant, but not 
fatally so.
Unfortunately, for applicants simply seeking two or more delegations 
with similar meaning, independent of script, initial evaluation 
failure and extended evaluation are not available. The contention set 
consisting of two strings and one actual applicant go to auction, with 
absurd outcome from the business perspective, and tragic outcome from 
the language perspective, as one script choice eliminates all others, 
for some meaning defined construction of "similarity".
The IDNG participants thank the Council for its time and attention 
considering its initial work product.

This ends the 3rd draft. Listees, edit to your heart's content.

Eric