[ChineseGP] on the issue of visual similarity

[Edmon]

Hi Everyone,

Building on the correspondence already sent to ICANN: https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/correspondence (Jan 25, 2019 https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/wei-et-al-to-marby-25jan19-en.pdf), in a recent conversation, I came across a further realization that I think is useful to share here.

In our previous discussion with ICANN and the IP, there was a question posed on whether the Latin GP would take into consideration the issues of the digits "0"/"1" and the letters "O"/"l"/"I".  The response summarily provided was that because the rootzone did not allow for digits and hyphens the Latin GP would not have to tackle the issue.

That logic is flawed.

The development of the root zone LGR for Latin must take into consideration such visual similarities IF visual similarities are to be considered for ANY rootzone LGRs.  That is because digits are "reserved names" and any new TLD proposed must NOT conflict with "reserved names".

As such, IF visual similarities for any rootzone LGR needs to be considered, it must also be applied to the Latin GP for reserved names.  I.e. whether "OOI" should be a "variant" or not with "001" or whether it should be handled by other string confusion mechanisms, in this case, string confusion with a reserved string.

Of course, my position remains that these issues are and should correctly be addressed with such other string confusion mechanisms.  Anyway, just a note for everyone so that we can more properly ask the question of ICANN and IP on the visual similarity issue.

Edmon