back to article Amazon may still get .amazon despite govt opposition – thanks to a classic ICANN cockup

Amazon may still get hold of its namesake top-level domain .amazon after an independent review panel lambasted the decision by DNS overseer ICANN to deny its application. The panel found – for a third time – that ICANN's board had failed to do its job and had broken its own bylaws by accepting a recommendation from its …

  1. barbara.hudson
    Happy

    A (not so Swiftian) modest proposal.

    Give it to them - then we can just block the whole .amazon TLD. Do the same for Facebook and Twitter and Google. Then pass a law requiring all advertising to be served from the same domain.

    1. Gordon Pryra

      Re: A (not so Swiftian) modest proposal.

      I was going to say that the Amazon is a geographical location, letting a company own it because they are rich is terrible precedent to make,

      BUT

      barbara.hudson made a fantastic point about the advertising and the ability to block spam. Not that any company would keep to that law for more than 30 seconds, but we can dream

      1. TeeCee Gold badge
        Meh

        Re: A (not so Swiftian) modest proposal.

        Ok you try and find something[1] that hasn't got some piece of geography somewhere on the planet sharing the name...

        [1] Ok, something that's an actual word and not some strategy boutique generated[2] brand name.

        [2] Same effect as pulling letters at random from a scrabble bag, only much more expensive.

        1. Stevie

          Re: A (not so Swiftian) modest proposal.

          Like barbara.hudson (county or river?)

          1. Chemical Bob

            Re: A (not so Swiftian) modest proposal.

            Car - hornet.hudson

    2. MyffyW Silver badge

      Re: A (not so Swiftian) modest proposal.

      An allegory covering a hapless website that travels across multiple domains, holding up a mirror to it's own contradictions and hypocrisies?

    3. Simon Harris

      Re:Then pass a law requiring all advertising to be served from the same domain.

      .spam ?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What about

    Create the amazon domain and put into a third party's hands to administer. Now the stuff flogger can have shop.amazon, Brazil can have br.amazon etc etc as subdomains.

    Everyone happy - hooray.

    Err not sure who gets www.amazon m.amazon or the inevitable amazon. A record. The last one will probably play merry hell with modern browser autocomplete/search things.

    1. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: What about

      Sweet. I plan to register com.amazon and start up an independent Bitcoin registry run from Nigeria.

      1. Justice
        Joke

        Re: What about

        Hello Friend...

  3. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Bugrit.

    Run out of popcorn.

  4. Ol'Peculier

    Does anyone care? Does anyone really pay attention to the domain that is shown from search engine results? (I'm talking the general public here though.) The only one I thought had legs was .bank to be run by a registrar that would only register them to known financial institutions (though the Nationwide's on both sides of the Atlantic might have had to scrap it out in the car park). The rest, just a money grab for ICANN.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      I think company names could work. Actually could work for ICANN too. Amazon spend a lot of money on advertsing, as do people like Google, Apple, Coke, Microsoft etc. If they push their new domain name in all their ads, then people are going to eventually learn it. Then they might become aware that there are more internet addresses than just .com.

      After all, I've seen a lot of money spent on marketing the new .word domains. But none of it at the public, it's all from domain hosting companies, trying to get us to register a bucketload of really expensive and crap names. No bugger has bothered to try to educate the public, so there's no demand, so business has mostly ignored the who charade. I guess ICANN made their bonuses, so it's not a total loss...

      Then again as shop.amazon is a long to type as amazon.com, why bother?

  5. ratfox

    Pity the xxx TLD is the one they let through. It was the most useless move ever. It's completely irrelevant, except for the registrar who somehow got the rights for it, and made a small amount of money before everybody realized it was useless.

  6. Dark_Ronius

    I find it hard to sympathise with Amazon- well full stop really. Personally, I'd rather not see a .amazon, or .google, or anything like that. But then that comes to the real question... What is the purpose of a gTLD? Or, what is the point?

    There seems to be no reason why we can't have .james or .edward... Why does Amazon get all the fun and exclusivity? In my opinion, the fact there is already a location called the Amazon Rainforest should be the one reason there *shouldn't* be a .amazon domain. It might make little impact now, but we have no idea what the future might look like. Although it would be rather humourous for locals of the rainforest to make the argument they were there long before the company!

    But it all comes down to the point having a restriction on the number of gTLDs is pointless once you start going down that route. It made sense having them tied to locations, or to a lesser extent broad categories like ".bank", ".coop" etc. But the further they go, the more arbitrary decisions are made which are inherently unfair. Why should The Amazon lose the rights to their own gTLD- seeing as the much smaller Wales gets one? Why should any locality lose those rights, for that matter? It was much easier when it was just countries to worry about.

    Besides that, allowing anyone to register their own TLD would stop this madness of buying domains for the sake of protecting ip... There would be a single landgrab for everyone's IP, arguments over specific names. I mean it probably sounds like madness and unworkable. But the system as it stands now seems like madness. This comment sounds like madness because the whole concept seems ridiculous... It reminds me of that toolbar (forgotten which now) which "added" loads of new TLDs... I think it was new.net?

    1. lglethal Silver badge
      Go

      Just to play Devil's Advocate here - tell me exactly where is the Country of Amazon? It's a river, not a Region. In both Brazil and Peru there are states called Amazonas, but that's not the same as Amazon and I bet that would be one hell of a fight if one of either Brazil or Peru wanted .Amazonas.

      TLD's are not (yet) given on that state or county Level. Countries, yes, but not yet states. Otherwise I would be expecting to see .yorkshire popping up sometime soon.

      On the otherhand I dont really see the point of more TLD's (beyond lining ICANN's pockets). So I'm all for rejecting the TLD, but NOT on the grounds of a make believe country which surrounds a river which is split between different real countries, and only theoretically might ever get used.

      1. Allonymous Coward
        Windows

        I would be expecting to see .yorkshire popping up sometime soon

        Flippin' 'eck, when I were a nipper we had it tough! We had to use gopher for t' Internet shopping!

        In them days, we'd a' been glad to have T'LD of our own!

  7. dieseltaylor

    I agree that ICANN are rubbish but the actual decision in respect of Amazon I applaud.

    Cultural imperialism - the grabbbing of a defined area of the world - should be resisted at all costs. Famous cultural names which may be geographic or historic should not become corporate playthings.

    The use of categories such as . bank as outlined above or a direct equivalent has the bonus of being very monitorable. I am sure with some more thought I could make cogent cases for the proposition.!

    1. Named coward

      define famous

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    Objection!

    Who speaks up for the people of Cornwall who are fighting US clothing company getting .landsend!

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Objection!

      Who cares?

      1. James O'Shea

        Re: Objection!

        Not I.

  9. nagyeger
    Paris Hilton

    .bank

    Given the two (plus) nationwide issue, I propose that .bank be 100% required to also include the country code in any registration. That way some innocent doesn't accidentally end up at an organisation in Nigeria when they think they're going to the one just down the road.

    Not that I'm suggesting she's innocent>>>>

  10. WibbleMe

    Convenient... humm

    But hang on your still going to sell the same shit on a .com as a .amazon real world people don't care

  11. Simon Harris

    Look at the problem in reverse...

    and name your company after an existing TLD.

  12. David Roberts
    FAIL

    What is the point

    Of having byelaws if there is no was to ensure that they are enforced?

    The EPO is another shining example of this approach.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Happy

      Re: What is the point

      Are they the organisation in charge of drug quality in cycling?

  13. theN8

    TLDR; ICANN is the FIFA of the interwebs...

  14. Stevie

    Bah!

    A brilliant plan suggests itself: Bezos incorproates in Amazonia, and offers the Brazillian govt cut-rate cloud hosting for Amazonia-related govt purposes!

  15. hellwig

    That's not how that works

    there were plenty of other names – like .amazonia – that would be just as effective.

    Until Amazon petitions to block the allocation of .amazonia because it's too close to .amazon.

    That's how corporations work. Apple will sue anyone with fruit in their name or logo, even though they themselves stole the Apple trademark.

  16. Teiwaz

    Someone please think of the ample breasted ladies

    What about the other amazons?

    What about the rights of well endowed ladies, do they not get a look in?

    Or the Greek ladies who amputated a mammary for better archery ability?

    All this carp about some shop and a forest....are we people centric or not...?

  17. steward
    Devil

    Things can be bought

    Amazon market cap: $490 B USD

    Ecuadorian debt: $ 25 B USD

    Brazilian debt : $ 1.5 T USD

    I think a monetary arrangement can be reached here.

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