Summary

  • Consider three applications for new top-level domains.
  • The current authoritative English Applicant Guidebook is V2-2026.04.24.

One set does not mean every pair is similar

The current authoritative English Applicant Guidebook is V2-2026.04.24. Section 7.10.3.5 gives the critical sequence: A is confusable with B, B is confusable with C, and A is not confusable with C. If B cannot proceed, A and C may both proceed. If B proceeds, neither A nor C can proceed.

The set therefore describes a connected dependency structure. It does not necessarily describe a clique in which the panel found every member visually similar to every other member.

That distinction matters because membership can be read too broadly. An applicant may see another name in the same set and assume the panel compared that exact pair and found a probability of user confusion. Under the indirect-contention rule, the assumption may be wrong. The relationship may exist only because both applications are directly connected to a third one.

The Guidebook also separates this evaluation result from later contention resolution. The similarity panel identifies and documents relationships and outcomes. It does not approve an application, assess its overall merit or complete the procedures that determine which contending application ultimately survives.

B is a bridge, not a preferred applicant

The middle position can look like power. It is not a substantive preference.

String B is important because it is the bridge between two direct comparisons: A–B and B–C. If B remains able to proceed, both direct conflicts remain consequential. If B drops out, the only connection between A and C may disappear, allowing both outer applications to continue.

Nothing in that structure makes B technically stronger, financially sounder or more deserving. Nothing gives it an automatic priority over A or C. The rule describes dependency, not merit.

Three records must therefore remain distinct. The first is the panel’s direct comparison record: which pairs were found identical or visually confusable. The second is the contention-set graph: which applications joined indirectly and through which bridge. The third is the later disposition record: which application withdrew, failed, prevailed or remained eligible to proceed. Collapsing those records into one set label turns a specific finding into an ambiguous status.

The A–B–C letters also must not be treated as facts about named 2026 applications. They are an explanatory model in the Guidebook, not evidence that ICANN has already formed a particular real-world set with a known bridge application.

Variants can carry the hidden link

The graph becomes harder to see when variant strings are involved. The Guidebook describes a chain in which A is confusable with one variant of B, while another variant in B’s variant-string-set is confusable with C. The decisive link can therefore run through a variant set even when the three primary labels do not reveal it on their face.

This does not turn every variant into a separate application, and it does not establish the same finding for every possible pair. It does mean that the source of each edge matters. A public list cannot explain the set if it omits whether the link arose from identity, direct visual similarity, a primary-to-variant comparison or transitivity through two variants in the same set.

ICANN describes String Similarity Evaluation as a manual review by an independent panel, supported by evaluation data and guidelines. The Applicant Guidebook says the panel documents its analysis, outcome and rationale, and that ICANN will publish evaluation outcomes. Those commitments establish that a reasoned result should exist. The reviewed materials do not establish that ICANN currently publishes a complete public map of direct edges, indirect membership and bridge dependencies.

Conclusion

ICANN’s rule does not say that A resembles C. It says A and C can depend on the same middle application because A conflicts directly with B and B conflicts directly with C. If B cannot proceed, A and C may be able to advance together. If B proceeds, both may be unable to continue.

That is a decision structure, not merely a group name. When the structure determines who may proceed, the public record should expose the direct and indirect links, the bridge string and every consequential status change. Otherwise the contention set appears more uniform than the panel’s actual findings, and its most important explanation remains hidden inside the list meant to disclose it.

Primary sources