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Nations of the Amazon are seeking “shared governance” of the .amazon TLD
- ceejayoz 8y agoNot the domain name, the .amazon TLD. [edit: To downvoters: the original title for this submission was "The nations of the Amazon want the domain name back".]
- Sahhaese 8y agoThis seems to be an error by submitter rather than the BBC too unless the BBC have changed their title. (Technically you can get into pedantry and point out that a top level domain is by definition a domain, but that's just not how people use the word and the headline is therefore left misleading).
- corobo 8y agoWouldn't it be better to petition to get .acto as their representative cctld equivalent? Maybe I'm just old fashioned or something but it feels more "official" to use a shortened/acronym/initialization than to want to use .amazon, which is also already established as the brand rather than the location
- CydeWeys 8y agoWhat would .acto mean? Also, ccTLDs are two letters long, not four. If it's three or more letters long then it's always a gTLD.
- t3rabytes 8y agoAmazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (Not agreeing that it's a great TLD)
- corobo 8y agoAmazon Cooperation Treaty Organization as t3rabytes mentioned, it's the organization formed by the countries involved. Correct, I meant gTLD. I couldn't think of the proper term at the time.
- detaro 8y agoTurning this around: So if you saw an ad with nothing else but "visit now at https://goto.acto" https://goto.acto" you might potentially think "that's probably a place get info on the river and/or the rainforest"?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- CydeWeys 8y agoYeah, that's just not a great TLD. No one will know what it means. .amazon is much better and it's obvious why they would want that one more.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ceejayoz 8y agoAmazon the brand named themselves after the river - their original logo was a depiction of a river. It was well established as a location by the 1990s.
- corobo 8y agoI'm talking about the TLD rather than the name. dotAmazon is known to represent the company Amazon
- ceejayoz 8y agoNo, it's not. I haven't seen a single .amazon domain in use yet, and they only got the greenlight to move ahead in October. http://www.circleid.com/posts/20181025_icann_gives_the_green_signal_on_dot_amazon_tld_for_company/ http://www.circleid.com/posts/20181025_icann_gives_the_green...
- corobo 8y agoSo if you saw an ad with nothing else but "visit now at https://goto.amazon" https://goto.amazon" you might potentially think "that's probably a place get info on the river and/or the rainforest"? I have my doubts, but each to their own
- ceejayoz 8y agoI'd think "what a shitty ad with zero context".
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago"Go to" implies going to a physical place, so for this specific example I actually disagree and would assume that it would belong to some Amazonian tourist board. But for most other examples I'd probably assume Amazon the company.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- weeksie 8y agoCultural appropriation. The ancient Greeks should be up in arms about these random indigenous folk claiming their intellectual property.
- crazygringo 8y agoIt's interesting that they want .amazon specifically for tourism/commerical purposes, because it's the English spelling, which is not used locally. Because if it were for locals, it would be .amazonia and .amazonas. (Similarly to how Germany is .de, not .gr or something like that.) And not that tourism means they don't deserve the name... but it's not like this has anything to do with indigenous rights or a business trampling a people. It's just a globally-known tourism business vs. a globally-known shopping business. So not exactly something I can find myself caring about much. What do ICANN's rules already say? Does it go to whoever first registers, or whoever pays the most?
- MiroF 8y agoIs there a .amazonia?
- gambiting 8y ago>>(Similarly to how Germany is .de, not .gr or something like that.) Or how Österreich has a domain .at you mean? :P There's already exceptions for this kind of thing all over the place. Russia has .ru despite not having a "u" anywhere in the name. Japan is .jp despite having nothing to do with Nippon.
- Y_Y 8y agoWell Russian is typically not written in Latin script, similarly Japanese. I don't know of anyone who refers to Switzerland as the "Helvetic Confederation". If I had to compress the names of all of earth's countries (and many non-country entities) into two or three ASCII characters I don't imagine I'd have done much better.
- cloakandswagger 8y agoIt's worth noting that Russia does have the .рф TLD ("RF" for Russian Federation) in addition to .ru. Considering how ubiquitous Latin keyboards are I'm OK with countries with non-Latin character sets getting a Latin equivalent as it makes those domains much more accessible to a large part of the world.
- fopen64 8y agoTypical Latin-American squatting. They see something went up in value and now want a piece of the action, so the politicians and public servants have more money to spend and steal. Disclosure: I am from LATAM. Other similar cases: 1) Big worries about biopiracy about allegedly miracle medicines from Amazon rainforest, as if the main cost, of a new medicine wasn't the test trails? As if we didn't use antibiotics whose molecule came from a rotten watermelon of a foreign country? Was that biopiracy too? 2) Big fuss about a railroad landfill in my area. The story: the railroad serves a port and Nazis were interested in that port, so the ecological disaster was indirectly perpetrated by Nazi Germany and some are seeking relief money from (current) Germany. The truth: the state-owned railroad company sought the landfill since the beginning of the 1900s because the original movable bridge was unstable, and the landfill was built in 1915. Hitler was in a trench by then.
- cronix 8y agoI'd prefer a shorter name anyway, if I were Amazon, the company. Who wants to type https://amazon.amazon https://amazon.amazon over https://amazon.com https://amazon.com?
- nerdponx 8y agoCouldn't you type https://amazon https://amazon. or https://buy.amazon https://buy.amazon. ?
- jsgo 8y agoThe latter yes, but the former would be like https://com https://com.
- chrismeller 8y agoPoor equivalency since com is a traditional TLD that has no inherent meaning on its own (though arguably could at least serve the VeriSign NIC page).
- vinay427 8y agoThe "com" is from "commercial," which is maybe more distinct in contrast with other types of entities: "org" or "edu". Of course, that use has largely been diluted today, but it does have an inherent meaning.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jsgo 8y agoHow is it a poor equivalency? https://amazon https://amazon is an attempt at just entering the tld without anything else and https://com https://com is entering the tld without anything else. Just because https://amazon.com https://amazon.com exists, doesn't mean "amazon" in and of itself means anything in the grand scheme of things.
- postalrat 8y agoAfter .amazon will be be getting .google, .microsoft, .apple, .foxnews, .wellsfargo, .jpmorgan, .walmart, .honda, .yc, .tesla, .crocs, .beanies, .friendster, .myspace, .etc?
- tobr 8y agoAt least the first three of those exist.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jariz 8y agoWe already do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains#Brand_top-level_domains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_dom...
- nolok 8y agoHate to break it to you, but several of those already exist https://icannwiki.org/.apple https://icannwiki.org/.apple https://icannwiki.org/.google https://icannwiki.org/.google ... The whole point of those "anyone can buy anything tld" felt like a scheme to force companies to buy "their" name.
- Spivak 8y agoI would assume that you woudln't be forced to buy your name if you own the trademark because within-reason nobody else would be able to buy it.
- TomMarius 8y agoDoesn't that apply only if the other company is a competitor to you? E.g. a shoemaker named Microsoft could get the domain if it was clear they're using the name fairly.
- icebraining 8y ago
- jdlyga 8y agoAdding more TLD's is such a bad idea
- legohead 8y agoanything that screws over cybersquatters gets my vote
- giobox 8y agoICANN’s UDRP already gives trademark holders huge leverage over cybersquatters, arguably too much power. Not sure we need much more in this regard. If you look at the UDRP’s case load, it’s extremely rare for trademark holders to lose a UDRP case. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Domain-Name_Dispute-Resolution_Policy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Domain-Name_Dispute-...
- ryanlol 8y agoUDRP process is often abused to shut down criticism: https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/text/2017/d2017-2156.html https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/text/2017/d201... The world would be better off without UDRP.
- 2_listerine_pls 8y agoDomain name investing is not the same as cybersquatting.
- icebraining 8y agoHow do you distinguish the two?
- 2_listerine_pls 8y agoThere are laws that define cybersquatting.
- 8y ago
- atonse 8y agoI love how they offered $5 million in amazon kindles and hosting to them. How absolutely daft. Couldn't they just offer money? (Not that it's more likely to work, but the kindles and hosting was ridiculous).
- sametmax 8y agoIt's just a way to appear generous with an offer they know they won't accept.
- penagwin 8y agoAnd/or a way to "offer more value" without the extra cost. Same reason you get more trade-in credit for a giftcard then cash, hosting is "virtually" free, and kindles only cost production + shipping cost. Not defending them, this is a useless offer, just offering another reason they'd have.
- kristianc 8y agoYou laugh, but people sign up to Techstars for just that every year. Pity they didn't throw in some AWS Credits as well.
- atonse 8y agoWe're talking about indigenous nations. What the hell are they going to do with AWS hosting?
- mises 8y agoThis feels like as much an attempt to typo-squat on the existing tld. I don't know why else they wouldn't go with the Spanish equivalent. Also, if they want it for tourism (the other possibility), I don't see why they have any more of a right to it than Amazon, Inc. First-come, First-served.
- henvic 8y agoWhen politicians and bureaucrats talk about shared governance what these parasites are really saying is that they want royalties for Amazon being named... Amazon. I am a Brazilian (not that it is important) and I wished Amazon had .amazon (but made it available for others to use it too) without state actors influence.
- kadendogthing 8y ago> and I wished Amazon had .amazon (but made it available for others to use it too) If only there was a way as a society we could make sure common resources could be used by interested and relevant parties in an agreeable manner. Maybe some kind of group that is formed based on the input of many people and will represent their interests in this matter and others like it. If only. Also it's really silly for one private company to own an entire TLD just because that company choose to use a generic, commonly used word. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
- tedunangst 8y agoAmazon is a generic commonly used word? What are some generic examples of things commonly referred to as amazon?
- frosted-flakes 8y agoEr, the Amazon River? I hope you were being facetious.
- ryanlol 8y agoPeople generally refer to that as the Amazon River. Does anyone really say "I'm going to Amazon"?
- kadendogthing 8y ago...are you actually saying that because "amazon" is not used as a proper noun that disqualifies it as a common, generic word and only instances of trademark use are valid? Because that's what your example heavily implies, based on the grammar and syntax (given your capitalization of the word amazon) of your example. I hope you're not doing that. Because that'd be ridiculous.
- linsomniac 8y agoThe proposed names (books.amazon, tourism.amazon, br.amazon) all seem to be dancing around what I suspect is going to be a big fight: Who gets www.amazon?
- CharlesW 8y agoTechnical DNS question: Can "amazon" be resolved without the "www"?
- notatoad 8y agotechnically yes, there's nothing special about www and no actual reason that a TLD can't be resolved directly. However, icann policy forbids 'dotless' domains, and most browsers will probably default to doing a web search if you enter a word that doesn't look like a domain in the address bar.
- Invictus0 8y agoYes. The following is a valid url: ai./
- notatoad 8y agoAmazon the company does, obviously. The only actual fight will be how much Amazon ends up paying to the nations of the amazon to use the name. (i suspect it will be zero)
- sigzero 8y agoI suspect it will be zero as well. I think that is the correct outcome.
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoDoes it not seem fucked up that we're allowing corporations to make their own exclusive TLDs in the first place?
- 7dare 8y agoI don't get why Amazon would get control of the entire TLD. Can't these new TLDs be managed by some other entity which hands out domains to those that want them?
- icebraining 8y agoAmazon got it under ICANN's New gTLD program. There have been over 1200 TLDs allocated: https://icannwiki.org/New_gTLD_Program https://icannwiki.org/New_gTLD_Program
- eeZah7Ux 8y agoIt absolutely is. Trademarks can be enforced only in a specific context e.g. I can use "amazon" as a name for my cat or a restaurant but not an online marketplace. Giving a whole TLD to a brand name is like giving an infinitely broad context to trademark.
- icebraining 8y agoHow is that different than giving them Amazon.com?
- danschumann 8y agoIrony that the company is now probably more known than the place.
- ben509 8y agoIt's amazing that Amazon's people miss an easy chance to score some good will. "Of course, we'll defer to the people who actually live in the Amazon because their cultural identity and heritage should obviously outlast our corporate branding." That would be a huge PR coup for them.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- flavor8 8y agoCustom TLDs are specifically non regional, according to ICANN rules. (I looked into buying my state as a TLD and then reselling domains. No go.)
- travisoneill1 8y agoWhy not Greece? The name is from their mythology.
- andjd 8y ago> "globally, hundreds (if not thousands) of brands have names similar to regions, land formations, mountains, towns, cities, and other geographic places". These could be put off applying for new gTLDs because of "uncertainty" over ICANN policy over geographic names. I guess I do not see why a company, especially one that already owns <companyName>.com, should find it necessary or feel entitled to register their brand or company name as a gTLD. In cases like this, it seems like the gTLD should be available in a way to reflect the broader meaning of the word.
- keytarsolo 8y agoI'd be okay with ICANN favouring the people from a place in any of these cases. The idea that American Airlines could own .america or that FC Barcelona could own .barcelona is much weirder than Apple owning .apple or something like that.
- takeda 8y agoThat's why allowing anyone with money create their own TLD for a quick buck opened a can of worms. There was nothing wrong with amazon.com and amazon.travel
- ryanlol 8y agoWhat's the can of worms here? Why wouldn't amazon.com have exactly the same problem as .amazon?
- hannasanarion 8y agoBecause then everybody is going to want a TLD, which ruins the whole point of a TLD.
- ryanlol 8y agoHow so? What’s the problem with selling TLDs to people willing to pay fuckloads of money for them?
- stOneskull 8y agoAmazon the company has .com That's enough
- vntok 8y agoThat is your personal opinion. To me and plenty others, there are a lot of legitimate uses for short and dynamic domains under .amazon, including shop.amazon, computers.amazon, books.amazon, category.amazon, videos.amazon, etc. In particular, I'd like to be able to teach my relatives to type in "some_product_they_want.amazon" in their search bar and be sure they will always land at a reputable place. Remember browsers are increasingly hiding URLs, so ensuring the domain is legit is incredibly important.
- kyle-rb 8y ago>Users can now end their website names with more than 1,200 new extensions, including .blog and .you This is a caption for a photo in the article, but .you isn't actually available. It's currently owned by Amazon, but they don't offer it to the general public. I'm not sure if they actually use it at all.
- depressed 8y agoThe nation-prefix suggestion could actually be reasonable if Amazon.com Inc. were also limited to its own prefix, say .inc.amazon. I assume that's not what was proposed.
- obenn 8y ago"And last year it tried to persuade the countries by promising them $5m (£3.8m) worth of free Kindle e-readers and hosting services." That's hilarious. Imagine if they just gave up the fight in exchange for like 100,000 Kindles and some AWS credits.