.CAM and .COM too visually confusing or not confusing at all? Both, says expert panel

Last week, the International Centre for Dispute Resolution’s expert panel (they decide string similarity cases for ICANN) determined that .CAM and .COM are too visually similar to coexist without causing user confusion. While domainers, applicants, registrars, and lawyers (and anyone else who wanted to) could argue whether that decision is sound, the problem is not the individual ruling, but the fact that the ruling directly opposes two previous decisions made by the same panel, concerning the same string.

To explain: VeriSign objected to all three applicants for .CAM — United TLD, AC Webconnecting Holding, and Famous Four Media. The ICDR’s expert panel overruled the objection to AC Webconnecting Holding and Famous Four Media, but sustained the objection to United TLD.

If your head didn’t just explode from confusion, then perhaps that’s because you’re thinking, “Well, maybe it had something to do with how United TLD was going to use the string.” But since the ICDR has to make their decisions without taking anything into account other than the visual similarity of the string, that can’t be the case.

This debacle got us thinking about other string similarity snafus. We did some digging, and came up with a couple possibilities. We call this list, “If You’ve Got Girl Problems, I Feel Bad for You Son — I Got Three Problems and String Similarity Objections are All of Them.” Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, it’s true. We’re taking suggestions.

Problem 1: Plurals that are the same length, but have different panel results

What’s the difference between .ECOM and .COM? One letter. What’s the difference between .CAR and .CARS? Also, one letter. But .CARS and .CAR have been ruled too similar while .ECOM and .COM have not. Why? They have the same technical amount of similarity. Maybe it’s because the letter is at the beginning. That’s the key, right? Wrong. Because .PET and .PETS has also been given the green light to coexist. There’s still one applicant waiting for review on .CAR and .CARS, all we need is for the panel to give them the green light when the first applicant got a red one, and we’ll have a party. A confusion party. Which would be apropos, really.

Problem 2: Plurals that don’t really look that similar

Alright, .CAR/.CARS and .AUTO/.AUTOS (interestingly enough, .AUTO./AUTOS is not contested) may be good to go, and that’s great — unless the IDCR rules that the nonstandard plural, .SUPPLIES, is too similar to .SUPPLY. Then the decision will most certainly fly in the face of previous plural decisions, and really any string similarity decision where the two strings differ by less than three letters. Which really brings us to problem 3.

Problem 3: There’s no method to the madness

This problem’s less of a prediction than a reality. Check out this chart, compiled by Dirk Krischenowski of DotBerlin, that uses the Sword Algorithm (an algorithm previously used by ICANN in string similarity decisions) to determine the percentage of visual similarity two strings have with one another.

You’ll notice that .UNICORN/.UNICOM and .HOTELS/.HOTEIS are up at the top, with .HOTELS/.HOTEIS showing almost 100% similarity. Below these two strings is .HOTEL/.HOTELS, ranking higher than other plurals bases on the number of letters in the name (more letters, more similarity, percentage-wise). The .HOTELS/.HOTEL contention set has already been approved, so you would think that everything sharing less similarity would be good to go. Or that once one four-letter plural makes it, they all do, since they share the same spot on the algorithm.

But that would be logical. And we’ll be having none of that here.

We never thought the most confusing thing about string similarity confusion would be determining if the confusion was confusing enough to really confuse people, or just confusing enough not to be too confusing.

Are you a nerd for new TLDs? So are we! Keep checking back for more information and updates as the application process continues on, and new dots hit the digital market. If you want to keep your eye on specific new dots, sign up for our free watcher service.

*Full disclosure: United TLD is owned by our parent company Demand Media.