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Public Comment

Public Comment is a vital part of our multistakeholder model. It provides a mechanism for stakeholders to have their opinions and recommendations formally and publicly documented. It is an opportunity for the ICANN community to effect change and improve policies and operations.

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  • English

Name: Bill Jouris
Date: 3 Dec 2025
Email: [email protected]
Original Public Comment: String Similarity Evaluation Data for New gTLD Program: Next Round
1. Are there any visually similar pairs of code points which are missing and should be added (with similarity category 1, 2 or 3)? If so, please list the missing pairs and similarity category (using the format: m, rn, 2).

Regarding the String Similarity Evaluation Data for the Latin Script: In some fonts (e.g. Times New Roman) the Latin Small Letter G looks like nothing else ( form does not allow showing this font ). But in other fonts (e.g. Arial) it looks very different (g). In those fonts, when underlined, it looks like Latin Small Letter Q (q). These should probably be Similarity 1; at the very least Similarity 2. Whether this should be included in one of the existing Sets for the Latin Small Letter G, or whether a new Set needs to be created, I cannot say. 

g q category 1 underlining

5. ASCII i and l (U+0069 LATIN SMALL LETTER I and U+006C LATIN SMALL LETTER L) are homoglyphs in mixed upper and lower case. Should mixed-case be considered in scope for the SSE Data?
Choice 1: Included in the similarity set with visual similarity Category 1 for the homoglyphs.
7. Appendix A provides details of four similarity sets which directly or transitively include the similarity between ASCII code points due to uppercase-lowercase conversion and variant definitions. Do you agree with the set?
Choice 1: Agree with the analysis in Appendix A and corresponding similarity sets identified in the data.
Other Comments

Section 2.3 says that two script experts were involved in the evaluation of each script. But Section 6 only lists one expert per script. The second expert for each script should also be acknowledged. 


Regarding the String Similarity Evaluation Data for the Japanese Script: Note that Japanese uses three phonetic character sets: Hirigana and Katakana as described here, plus romanji. Romanji are Latin Letters; actually ASCII characters. If a TLD exists in ASCII characters (perhaps because that is all that was available prior to the IDNs), it is entirely possible that the owner of that TLD would also want the same TLD written in kana. Certainly they would not wish someone else to register the version in kana, as that would cause serious confusion. For example, nihongo (the Japanese Language) would be seen as the same word as  にほんご   (U+30CB U+307B U+3093 U+3054).

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