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ICANN published its list of new gTLD contention sets that were identified during the string similarity review.

On Tuesday, February 26, 2013, ICANN released the string similarity contention sets that were accumulated during the string similarity review for the applications they received as part of the New gTLD Program.

Module 4 of ICANN’s Applicant Guidebook states: “ICANN will not approve applications for proposed gTLD strings that are identical or that would result in user confusion, called contending strings.“

It also describes string contention as:

(1) Two or more applicants for an identical gTLD string successfully complete all previous stages of the evaluation and dispute resolution processes; or

(2) Two or more applicants for similar gTLD strings successfully complete all previous stages of the evaluation and dispute resolution processes, and the similarity of the strings is identified as creating a probability of user confusion if more than one of the strings is delegated.

Of the 754 applications found to be in contention, only two sets were non-exact match:

.hotels (applied for by Booking.com B.V.) & .hoteis (applied for by Despegar Online SRL)

.unicorn (applied for by Unicorn a.s.) & .unicom (applied for by China United Network Communications Corporation Limited)