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Brazil and Peru Dispute .Amazon TLD
judgecorp writes "Amazon.com could lose the .amazon domain, as Brazil and Peru have disputed the retailer's application to ICANN, backed by other South American governments, who want to protect use of that domain for 'purposes of public interest related to the protection, promotion, and awareness raising on issues related to the Amazon biome.'"
Bezos can register amaz.on and am.azon
Mega Corporation Money Grab in 3 - 2 - 1. Just in time for the holiday sales rush! I bet this whole thing will jusr go away for X-amount of dollars.
Back in the day, there was some concern over the fact that domain names are universal. Someone wanting Amazon in the US for example has different rights than someone wanting Amazon in Brazil. Many people suggested that we go to location-based domains.
Amazon has mostly followed this model. You order from Amazon.de if you're in Switzerland, or Amazon.co.uk if you like toast with your Earl Grey.
Maybe this approach should be re-revisited for domain names in general. Is it fair that one person gets amazon.com, even though there is a region, at least one bookstore, and a tribe of warrior women vying for the name?
No, its *.amazon (the TLD is in question, not the domain name itself)
-SaNo
Should the United Kingdom be told to use uk.gov instead of .uk? Et al.
Long signatures suck.
You didn't even manage to read the headline before commenting?
It's just another way to further entrench branding to the point that the Internet will be "owned" (in a marketing way) by 4 or 5 companies.
All the worlds indeed a
Because .gov predates the geographical domains like .us.
No, Amazon.com wants to buy the .amazon (see the dot?) TLD. Brazil and Peru do not want them to because there's a forest by that name that predates Amazon.com by a few millenia at the very least. .gov and .com are owned by the US government (which only serves to cause confusion, each country should, IMO, have a .xy and then be free to create whatever they want inside their .xy, that'd also make it more clear that if your domain is legally taken down country xy is responsible), so if there was an amazon.gov it'd be amazon.gov.br or amazon.gov.pe.
ICANN is creating more TLDs to make more money. It's bullshit and shouldn't be happening, but they have too much power for their own good and don't answer to anyone who cares. Just in case you think of taking them seriously, they wanted to use a Flash game to decide who gets what.
The other half will, of course, be Amazon, Inc. objecting to any South American entity using .amazon for any purpose but to drive traffic to Amazon, Inc.
----
Personally, I think the whole TLD thing would've gone a lot better if no new .TLDs were created save those assigned as country-codes, codes for multinational entities like the UN or the European Union, or domains needed for purely technical purposes like .ARPA.
Alas, money and politics rule the day.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
In related news, big number mathematicians are considering whether to dispute the .google TLD. Many consider the corporation to be moving in on their turf and want to reserve the domain for the public and insomniac sheep counters.
Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline have expressed no interest whatsoever in the .microsoft TLD.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
First, Amazon owning ".amazon" is a stupid idea. Really, guys: that's just dumb. Stop it.
Second, were Brazil and Peru even remotely interested in ".amazon" before Amazon tried to create it, or is that a convenient excuse to coerce Amazon to ask their blessing (presumably for a modest compensatory donation)? I don't recall hearing of their grand plans for that TLD before today.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
That's the reason. Yet... considering how the US Gov't thinks US laws apply worldwide (DMCA e.g.), it is only fitting that they own .gov at the gTLD and not ccTLD level.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Well demonstrating prior art shouldn't be difficult! :-)
Actually most people will open up google or use bookmarks, I'd have thought. Personally I'm all for more TLDs, however I'd probably rather we remove domains from domain campers who aren't using them for anything besides domainparking / ads / or attempts to sell.
The silliest part about custom TLDs is that because they're so obscure, you have to put "http://" in front of them for people to recognize them in the wild. Replacing "amazon.com" with "http://amazon" is a net increase in number of characters, defeating any benefits that may have come by avoiding the TLD. I guess if you're starting with ".org.uk" or something similar it's neutral, but a lot of countries abbreviate the category part to two characters (.or.jp, .co.uk, etc), making the addition of "http://" still worse.
Unless it's 2002 again and we're suddenly writing out "www." for everything?
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Ok, this is from a link in the original article.. but this bit REALLY jumped out at me.
ICANN has seen over $350 million come in as a result of the process, but said that covered the cost of dealing with the whole process.
I am really curious, what kind of 'process' they are using that eats nearly a quarter of a billion dollars just to decide on some new gTLDs. It isn't technological in nature.....
"Replacing "amazon.com" with "http://amazon" is a net increase in number of characters"
You need more than that - "amazon" is a (TL) domain, not a host. You'd need something like "http://www.amazon". Just entering "http://amazon" is likely to resolve to the user's local domain, e.g. "amazon.example.com".
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Why aren't the ISP uniting the replace the totally corrupt ICANN, by switching DNS to a better organization?
It's clear that they are violating the trust put in them to monetize public goods for their personal profit.
I actually support that, we should have more awareness of the amazon. Amazon the company can just use Am or Zon or something.
The blame for this is on certain browser developers (*cough* MS *cough*). There is no technical reason why "amazon" couldn't be a host, but IE stupidly assumes that when you enter a single word, you want to search for it. It won't even resolve local domains. When I use IE I can't type in just "sharepoint" like I should be able to. Instead I have to type "sharepoint.company.com".
"Replacing "amazon.com" with "http://amazon" is a net increase in number of characters" You need more than that - "amazon" is a (TL) domain, not a host. You'd need something like "http://www.amazon". Just entering "http://amazon" is likely to resolve to the user's local domain, e.g. "amazon.example.com".
And, to make matters worse, if I have a host called www.amazon.domain.local on my domain, the request will still be routed to that local host!
There are very good reasons to keep fewer top domains.
Battlemaster--Game with friends in medival realms
. Even though I do enjoy a couple of my .xxx domains creating 100's of domains is useless and will alienate users. Who the hell would want to use or type in yourfoodstore.amazon?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
When ICANN proposed this new TLD concept, this is exactly what people were saying would happen. The entire point of the original domain name system was that it was hierarchical, so that terms like "amazon," which were ambiguous, were not in contention. It is clear that amazon.com is a commercial company while amazon.pe is the river in Peru. If you give one trademark holder the entire hierarchy, the system falls apart.
At the risk of being trollish by linking to my own Slashdot comment:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2782577&cid=39661791
They use .gov.uk
Oh, Bezos. Just a few years before you formed your company, did not Intel show that you should make up a new word, rather than use a number, or as anyone would assume was clearly implied, use an existing word?
And it's the name of a place? I can cut you some slack on that; nobody ever knows for sure that they'll ever hit the big time and become a world power. Nevertheless, you made it. Good for you, but there are consequences.
Now you must face a difficult decision: are you going to rename your company to Amazathalon, or are you going to sit on your laurels while I take the name and form a new business to eat your lunch?
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
The rotten and corrupt Domain Name System.
Oh, how I pity those big ass mega corps getting burned over their short sightedness by lifting a used term, Amazon, Apple, Sun.., how unoriginal, how non-authentic, how false, you can't even have a Wikipedia page without some serious elbowing and constant clashes, oh poor ones, cry us an amazon.
The blame for this is on certain browser developers (*cough* MS *cough*). There is no technical reason why "amazon" couldn't be a host, but IE stupidly assumes that when you enter a single word, you want to search for it.
Psst... don't look now, but Firefox, Chrome, and Opera all do the same thing. But don't that stop you from following in the /. tradition and singling out MS.
A hostname is a domain name assigned to a host computer. Therefore, "amazon" can be both.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
They were introduced at the same time, in the same RFC... but the bottom line is that it started out as an exclusively U.S. network, and one with a military bent at that (ever wondered by it is not .mil.gov?!) At this point it's a permanent quirk.
Safari does this now too, it is now the rule rather than the exception...
Website Just Down For Me? Find out
Note that only in the case of an "example.com" hostname can it also be called a domain name (which should be taken to mean "a hostname within a domain," as opposed to a simple unqualified hostname). Try to connect to http://com/ or http://gov/ or http://edu/ or http://net/ and see where it gets you.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Safari does this now too, it is now the rule rather than the exception...
Stupidity is contagious.
They were described in the same RFC, but .gov was established at that time and .us was not. Specifically, in RFC 920, the following TLDs domains are identified as established with specific administrators and agents:
ARPA (temporary, for existing ARPA-Internet sites pending transition to new TLDs), GOV, EDU, COM, MIL, and ORG.
Additionally, the following categories of domains were described as being available, but having no instances established: countries (identified by the ISO-standard two-letter english country codes—which would include US), and multiorganizations.
Yes, but shop.amazon, shoes.amazon, computers.amazon, etc would all be easy to remember. Or leave out subdomains entirely and just go to "amazon"
Considering that .com, .org, and .net have all sort of flowed together and lost much of their original purpose I don't see that opening up TLDs does anything (long term) except eliminate an essentially arbitrary suffix from domain names.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
When I type amazon.com into a web browser, it assumes I mean www.amazon.com. It would be trivial to expand that with the new tlds. If you type "amazon" assume "www.amazon" which is a host (or would be if the owner of amazon set it up that way).
Learn to love Alaska
Because the US Department of Defense created the ARPAnet/Internet and created domains for the only organizations allowed on it: US COMpanies, US GOVernment, US EDUcational institutions, US MILitary, US NETwork infrastructure, and other US ORGanizations.
The country TLDs came much later. When they appeared, US companies (including most multinationals) continued to register under COM and the US government continued to register under GOV. Eventually, all the restrictions on US TLDs were lifted, except for GOV, EDU, and MIL. All these gTLDs remain under US jurisdiction, however, just like FR and DE are French and German TLDs.
The fact that com, gov, edu, and net do not have A records (that is, they do not point to a specific host) does not mean there is a technical reason they cannot have A records.
"When I type amazon.com into a web browser, it assumes I mean www.amazon.com."
No, it doesn't. It goes out to DNS to resolve "amazon.com," and the returned record point to the hosts 72.21.211.176, 72.21.194.1, and 72.21.214.128. Your browser then attempts to do an http get from one of those hosts, and is immediately redirected to www.amazon.com. It's Amazon which is changing it to www.amazon.com, not your browser. Many/most sites do that.
Prove it to yourself - https://twitter.com/ connects, no www.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Psst...don't look now, but Firefox at least follows the standards and does not search if the single word actually resolves to a host name. But don't let that stop you from not understanding how computers really work.
I just typed "www" in the address bar of FF 13 and it correctly brought up my company's main webpage. Why? Because the resolver on my PC is set to automatically search our own domain when looking up a hostname. FF only goes to web search if the resolver fails to return an IP address.
There are many people who do that. Even companies and IT people. Where I work our website www.example.com is available to see through our firewall, but not the IDENTICAL example.com one. Many sites still forward example.com to www.example.com for some reason.
Many people when I spell out a website like here.example.com will start typing http://www./ not only in their browser, but on google.
People tell me that their email has no spaces and is all lowercase.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I just typed "www" in the address bar of FF 13 and it correctly brought up my company's main webpage. Why? Because the resolver on my PC is set to automatically search our own domain when looking up a hostname. FF only goes to web search if the resolver fails to return an IP address.
Meanwhile, I tried 'com'. "http://com" resolves correctly, but entering just "com" does a search.
I'm not enough of a networking guy to explain the difference. Anyone want to comment?
Fun trivia fact: you can include underscores, hyphens, and periods in e-mail addresses, and the RFCs don't prohibit case-sensitivity. In fact, you can even include spaces provided you wrap it in quotation marks. Wikipedia gives this exciting example: "very.(),:;[]\".VERY.\"very@\\ \"very\".unusual"@strange.example.com
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Psst... don't look now, but Firefox, Chrome, and Opera all do the same thing. But don't that stop you from following in the /. tradition and singling out MS.
Firefox appears to correctly resolve foo to foo.example.com when it's in the domain provided by DHCP (on Windows & Linux).
(and when it gets an NXDOMAIN , it does a google search)
it does play only domain grabbers in to the hands!
Countries use their country code. UK uses .gov.uk.
The Amazon river and rainforest doesn't have a country code. Brazil, Peru etc. do, but there isn't one specifically for transnational Amazon-related issues. Sounds pretty reasonable that they would want one for it now that it's up for grabs.
Perhaps you don't consider it a "technical reason," but the fact is that it makes collisions, and therefor problems, very likely if using domain searchs (common in enterprises). Try using a rooted FQDN in your apps. Some work, some break. Consider the case where an organization has named its servers after rivers - "amazon" is likely to get resolved locally. Read RFC1535 and RFC1536 ("A name containing no dots can be appended with the searchlist right away"). Go ahead, name your servers after popular websites (www.slashdot.com.example.org, www.google.com.example.org,) , and let the fun begin.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The other Amazon country, with land borders with Brazil and Surinam?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Hmm, I think I may have figured it out. I think that the browsers are adding an implicit .com at the end. So CNet got its hands on com.com, and when I type "http://com" in, it tries adding a .com to get http://com.com/ which then redirects to cnet.
So I think my previous test wasn't working the way I expected. Now that said, I still don't know what the difference is with what IE does -- I just tried typing 'www' into IE, and it took me to my domain's www host, and did not do a search.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Apparently so is Slashthink
That's a good reason why they shouldn't resolve. I think I had misinterpreted your previous comments to mean that they couldn't resolve.
The countries are older than the company, and will last more time. Let Bezos use .amazoncompany, if he wishes.
Here's an idea - what if they move the dot and shorten "company" to just three letters!
Place nail here >+
The entire point of the original domain name system was that it was hierarchical, so that terms like "amazon," which were ambiguous, were not in contention.
Well, .us was ambiguous. I thought it was meant for us but it was ruled by them. How is that logic?
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Uh, no. If you write 'amazon.com' in your browser and the domain has an A record, it'll resolve directly. You don't need any alias - you don't even need to have a 'www.' subdomain configured.
Dilbert RSS feed
http://ws/ should work (though it's only a redirect), so try typing things like ws or ws. in your address bar.
Indeed, ws has an A record.
dig -t A ws.
; > DiG 9.8.1-P1 > -t A ws. ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER
Psst...don't look now, but Firefox at least follows the standards and does not search if the single word actually resolves to a host name.
So does IE. Is there any browser that doesn't try to resolve input that matches a valid domain name before treating it as a search string?
My comment came from the assumption that Amazon's DNS admin would be competent, so wouldn't try to assign an A record to the TLD, hence the requirement for a "dotted" FQDN.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
If they want to protect the Amazon rainforest, I think they should do something about the illegal lumberjacks, the aggressive cattle pastures and crop farms first. Respecting the natives, stopping wildlife smuggling and foreign companies from patenting natural chemicals found in the Amazon is also a good thing. I don't think the environment cares about 6 bytes at the end of a domain name.
What do brain slugs have to do with removing domain squatters?
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Automatic redirection from "domain.tld" to "www.domain.tld" has always annoyed me. In fact, I do the exact opposite on any sites I run by removing any instance of "www," even those typed directly in by someone coming to the site.
Actually, even more annoying are those sites which don't bother with redirection and simply don't load at all via "domain.tld."