ICANN has fought off an appeal by .webs gTLD applicant Vistaprint, in a case that considered the coexistence of 

singular and plural gTLDs.

While ICANN definitively won the Independent Review Process case, the IRP panel nevertheless invited its board

of directors to consider whether Vistaprint should be given a chance to appeal a decision that ruled .webs too

similar to .web.Vistaprint runs a web site building service called Webs.com. It filed two applications for .webs —

one “community” flavored, one vanilla — but then found itself on the losing end of a String Confusion Objection 

filed by rival Web.com, one of the many .web applicants.

It was one of the few instances where a SCO panel decided that a plural string was too confusingly similar to

 its singular for the two to coexist.

Not wanting to have to fight for .webs at auction against eight .web applicants — which would likely cost eight

 figures to win — Vistaprint filed a Request for Reconsideration (which failed), followed by an last-ditch IRP

 complaint.But its three-person IRP panel ruled on Friday (pdf) that ICANN did not violate its bylaws by accepting

 the SCO decision and subsequently rejecting the RfR.However, the panel handed Vistaprint a silver lining that 

may eventually give the company what it wants. Even though ICANN won, Vistaprint may not necessarily have

lost.

Acknowledging Vistaprint raised important public interest questions, the panel ordered ICANN to pay 40% of IRP 

costs.The Vistaprint IRP was one of the things holding up the .web contention set, so Friday’s declaration moves 

the fabled gTLD one step closer to reality.If the company gets the ability to appeal its SCO loss, it would add 

months to the .web runway. If it does not, it will have to remain in the .web contention set, which would head to

auction.