An independent review has found that .hotels and .hoteis are too similar and both should not be approved in a victory for ICANN.The Independent Review Process was considering whether to overturn the original ICANN decision in an appeal from Bookings.com.However the victory wasn’t total for ICANN with the IRP panel “characterising the string confusion and IRP processes as flawed and said ICANN should have to pay half of the panel’s $163,000 costs,” according to Domain Incite.Meanwhile Kieren McCarthy writing in The Register says “Despite winning, the ruling has put a spotlight on the systems that are supposed to hold ICANN to account. Not only are the mechanisms inadequate, it’s claimed, but it appears they are designed to back whatever decisions are made by ICANN staff and the board, regardless of merit.””Hoteis” is “hotels” in Portuguese and as Domain Incite notes, neither new gTLD application was contested. But it would be very easy to make “hoteis” indistinguishable to the average user online by writing it with a capital “I”.For more information, see:
www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/05/icann_taken_to_task_over_worthless_accountability_mechanisms/
domainincite.com/18097-icann-wins-hotels-hoteis-confusion-appeal-but-has-to-pay-up-anyway
https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/final-declaration-03mar15-en.pdf