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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.'"
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?
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
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.
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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.
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?
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Well, no. The name Amazon long pre-dates the river, being the name of a mythological tribe of warrier women who removed a breast so they could better shoot a bow. "Amazon" comes from the Greek a-mazos, "without a breast."
.amazonriver, if they wish.
The countries in the Amazon River basin have a no more legitimate claim to the domain than does the company. Let them use
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
"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
"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
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
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.
Safari does this now too, it is now the rule rather than the exception...
Stupidity is contagious.
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.
The other Amazon country, with land borders with Brazil and Surinam?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
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 >+
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.