ICANN Corporation will check internationalized similar domains. What’s meant here is the domain names which use non-Latin writing. Among such names there can be similar ones, in different scripts variants (e.g. variants of one string in Mandarin and simplified Chinese).
ICANN has been working on the check procedure of such domains for similarities for a long time. Now the Corporation has decided to share authorities on technical requirements performance estimation and string similarities check between two commissions. This step is the reply to the Internet community and Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) inquiry to make similarity evaluation procedure more clear and see-through.
String similarity initial evaluation as previously will be conducted by DNS stability evaluation commission. The second stage is optional but the second commission’s decision will be final. All applicants will be able to address the second commission for the final decision including those whose applications haven’t passed the string similarity initial evaluation.
Now ICANN is actively introducing a two-level scheme, is working on methodology, commission structure and applications evaluation procedure. The procedure will take force after ICANN declares the second commission’s structure. Before this moment the applications for variational IDN-domains as previously will be considered with the help of advanced procedure.
