Only four top level domain applicants find themselves ensnared by string similarity.
Did you hear that?
It’s a collective sigh of relief from many new top level domain applicants.
Today ICANN announced which domain names would be placed into string similarity contention sets, meaning they are likely to create confusion among users thanks to their similarity.
There are only two contention sets involving a total of four domains:
.hotels (booking.com) & .hoteis (Despegar Online SRL)
.unicorn (Unicorn a.s.) & .unicom (China United Network Communications Corporation)
This is a somewhat surprising result. Domains that are off by one letter — even a letter close on the keyboard — are OK to go forward (although other applicants can dispute that).
In the end this was the only viable result. Canning TLDs that are off by one letter would eliminate a lot of current and future applications including short brand acronyms. More intriguing are cases were one TLD is a plural of another, such as .deal and .deals.
You can see the details of the string similarity review here.
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