[council] Draft Changes to String Similarity Review Proposed by GNSO Council - Public Comments Requested

[Glen de Saint Géry <Glen@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-11jun10-en.htm



Draft Changes to String Similarity Review Proposed by GNSO Council - Public 
Comments Requested



11 June 2010



On 10 June, the GNSO Council passed a resolution requesting that a 21-day 
public comment period

http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/public-comment-201007-en.htm#string-similarity-amendment

be opened regarding a proposal to send the following letter be sent to Kurt 
Pritz, Senior Vice President, Services, copy to the ICANN Board, recommending 
that the Draft Applicant Guidebook version IV section on "Outcomes of the 
String Similarity Review" be amended to allow applicants to request an Extended 
Review under applicable terms similar to those provided for other issues such 
as "DNS Stability: String Review Procedure". The GNSO Council further 
recommends that a section be added on "String Similarity - Extended Review" 
that parallels other such sections in Module 2.



The text of the GNSO Council resolution and draft letter may be found here

http://gnso.icann.org/correspondence/council-resolution-proposed-letter-dagv4-ext-rev-11jun10-en.pdf
 [PDF, 12 KB].



Background Information



The GNSO Council is concerned that the Draft Applicant Guidebook, Version 4 
does not include an Extended Review option for strings that fail the initial 
evaluation for confusing similarity and likelihood to confuse. The GNSO Council 
in Recommendation #2 of the GNSO Final Report on the Introduction of New gTLDs 
in September 2007 intended to prevent confusing and detrimental similarity and 
not similarity that could serve the users of the Internet. More recently, the 
IDNG Drafting Team established by the GNSO Council has discussed various 
circumstances where applicants for strings that may be designated as 
confusingly similar in the initial evaluation may be able to present a case 
showing that the string is not detrimentally similar to another string. The 
Council proposes that a letter be sent recommending changes to the Draft 
Applicant Guidebook to address this concern.



Further Information



Full information about the new gTLD program may be found at: www.icann.org.



Comments are due by 2 July 2010.



Staff Responsible: Liz Gasster



Glen de Saint Géry

GNSO Secretariat

gnso.secretariat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

http://gnso.icann.org