Re: [council] AG changes reflecting council resolution 20100715-1

[Kurt Pritz <kurt.pritz@xxxxxxxxx>]

Edmon, et.al.:

The Board considered that the changes proposed by the GNSO deserve proper 
consideration and may ultimately prove to be beneficial, but that they could 
not be considered a simple change to the policy implementation.  Issues that 
should be agreed upon include, for example, operational requirements or 
contractual conditions as safeguards.  Thus, the Board's resolution on string 
similarity was passed as noted at 
http://icann.org/en/minutes/resolutions-25sep10-en.htm#2.4, and the language in 
the proposed final version of the guidebook is in accordance with that 
resolution.  

The position arrived at and presented to the Board in September at the 
Trondheim workshop was essentially that the exact criteria and requirements for 
such a situation to be unequivocally fulfilled should be clearly defined and 
need to be agreed upon by the wider community.  This is detailed more fully in 
the Board paper posted at 
http://icann.org/en/minutes/board-briefing-materials-1-25sep10-en.pdf.

In relation to the question about the GNSO's motion and corresponding letter 
recommending that exceptions be granted from a finding of string 
similarity/confusion, it emerged from discussion and consideration of the 
request that the criteria and requirements for operation of similar TLDs in a 
"non-detrimental" manner are not obvious or straightforward.  

The GNSO's request is also discussed in the comment summary and analysis on 
draft version 4 of the guidebook, 
http://icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/summary-analysis-agv4-12nov10-en.pdf, 
noting that this is a complex issue and should be subject to additional policy 
consideration.  ICANN supports additional work on this being undertaken in the 
GNSO.

I hope this is helpful and clear. I can answer additional questions.

Regards,

Kurt




On Dec 4, 2010, at 6:36 AM, Edmon Chung wrote:

> 
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> Finally had a chance to look through the proposed final AG...
> 
> I refer to our resolution in June and July about Confusingly similar TLD 
> strings and our request for the AG to be updated regarding the issue: 
> http://gnso.icann.org/resolutions/#201006 (20100610-1) and 
> http://gnso.icann.org/resolutions/#201007 (20100715-1)
> 
> It seems to me (based on the redline version) that nothing to that effect 
> seems to have been put in place, and the String Similarity review still says:
> 
> An application that fails the String Similarity review due to
> similarity to an existing TLD will not pass the Initial Evaluation,
> and no further reviews will be available.
> 
> 
> I wonder if anyone did find the changes relevant to our resolution... and 
> whether staff can help explain what actions were taken with regards to the 
> above resolutions...
> 
> Edmon
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>