.pets

Status:	Proposed
Registry Provider:	Demand Media
Type:	Generic
Category:	Lifestyle
PIC Submitted:	Download Here
More information:

.pets is a proposed TLD in ICANN's New gTLD Program. The applicant is Donuts (John Island, LLC). Several other applicants applied for a similar TLD, .pet.

Application Details

Many of Donuts' applications, including this one, seem to have been applied for using the same boiler-plate application in which the TLD is defined as a means of providing greater expression on the Internet and will be an open TLD without pre-registration policies. It notes its plans to adhere with all registration policies required by ICANN and its intent to have remediation and takedown policies clearly defined to fit within these requirements. Pre-registration verification will not be used and this as defined as causing "cause more harm than benefit by denying domain access to legitimate registrants." They intend to control abuse through "extensive user and rights protections."

String Confusion Objection

Google submitted a String Confusion Objection to the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) (a division of the AAA) on March 13, 2013, asserting that .pet and .pets are confusingly similar. .pets' only applicant is Donuts, but a ruling by Richard Page of the ICDR that agrees with objection may put Donuts into the same contention set with current .pet applicants Google and Afilias. This ruling came as a surprise as similar String Confusion Objections for .hotel vs. .hotels and .car vs. .cars did not find the plural form of the strings to be confusingly similar. A second panelist agreed with Google's objection in a report published on September 19, 2013.

Top-Level Domain