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Amazon's Quest For Web Names Draws Foes
quantr writes in with a story about backlash to Amazon's request for ownership of new top-level domain names. "Large and small companies are vying for control of an array of new Internet domain names, but Amazon.com Inc.'s plans are coming under particular scrutiny. Two publishing industry groups, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, are objecting to the online retailer's request for ownership of new top-level domain names that are part of a long-awaited expansion of the Web's addressing scheme. They argue that giving Amazon control over such addresses—which include '.book,' '.author' and '.read'—would be a threat to competition and shouldn't be allowed. 'Placing such generic domains in private hands is plainly anti-competitive,' wrote Scott Turow, Authors Guild president, to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, the nonprofit that oversees the world's Internet domain names. 'The potential for abuse seems limitless.'"
I mean a SHITLOAD of money! Did YOU give us a shitload of money?
Your political party doesn't care about your rights and only represents corporate interests.
And then do what they want with the subdomains book. author.
Have gnu, will travel.
the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers... argue that giving Amazon control over such addresses—which include '.book,' '.author' and '.read'—would be a threat to competition and shouldn't be allowed.
You know? I agree with them... of would be like /.-ers raising a kickstarter to take the .grits TLD without giving a damn on the what Natalie would think.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Anyone who spent more than five pre-1999 minutes on the Internetties knew that the idea of a free-for-all of generic TLDs was more useless than the pope's nutsack. We watched the bubble burst before October, 2000 and saw what happened with otherwise-untrademark-able generic words was getting us into, and that was still with dotcom, dotorg, and doznet.
About ICANN's control of TLD's some years ago? Yeah... about that. What the hell did people think was going to happen?
Nice edgy comment, but what evidence do you have that ICANN was paid off?
Why are we considering new TLDs to begin with? We're taking a good, loose system of categorisation and throwing it away because... why exactly?
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
How is this any more controversial than if Amazon bought book.com, author.com, read.com? book.com is owned by B&N. Is anyone jumping in their ass because "The potential for abuse seems limitless?"
Because B&N doesn't own *.com, jackass.
Really, dude, if you're going to comment, at least have half a fucking clue how whatever it is you're commenting on works.
Sheesh.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Price for TLD registration has been set high enough to eliminate many (if not most) small businesses. This move pushes Internet into corporate hands even more.
Yeah... but .com is only valuable because only a few of those top level domains exist. It's essentially the same thing, and GP's point is perfectly valid. Don't go throwing stones in glass houses... or something like that.
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Everyone loves companies when they are the under dog, when they pop up and offer better services and prices than bigger companies and so on. But once a company like that gets big for making customers happy they eventually start being hated and overly scrutinized just because they are now a big company, even if they still do the same things for customers that made them be praised to begin with.
Like walmart for instance. When walmart started everyone loved them for offering so many products for low prices in bulk quantities and offering a lot of services in one place. Now walmart is a huge corporation and they do the EXACT SAME things as they did starting out people hate walmart for no real reason. Sure they have reasons but its still the same company it was when it was smaller and starting out.
Now people are starting to dislike amazon despite the fact amazon has only gotten better over time and offers more to customers for the same low prices while their selection and selection gets better all the time. But people are fickle, they hate big corporations over time for no reason at all. People love to hate what they once praised. So people are having to nitpick the slightest and smallest things they can about amazon to attack it, even stupid ones like this. Over the next few years the dislike for amazon will grow and grow because once something is attacked by the public they refuse to ever let it go. But guess what? People will still shop with amazon. Its the call of duty effect where in people will hate something outright and constantly bitch about it but will still shovel their money out for it just like people do with call of duty. Like each year everyone on the internet complains about the new call of duty and hates on it and then when it comes out it sells like 750 million copies in the first week.
It doesn't matter who owns "book" or "read". The war is over and .com won.
I think the issue is that the price is high enough to be a barrier to poor domain squatters but not rich ones.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
ICANN simply needs to rollback this new TLD system and refund the money. It doesn't work.
Yeah... but .com is only valuable because only a few of those top level domains exist. It's essentially the same thing, and GP's point is perfectly valid.
No, it's not. ".com" is a company. The idea of the more descriptive TLDs, like eg ".museum". is that it implies that what you find at that site is a legitimate member of that group. So Smithsonian.museum will take you to the actual Smithsonian Institute. If Amazon owned ".book" they would work to make it imply that "Book_title.book" was the legitimate site for any book to have. Every other publisher and/or author would end up having to either pay Amazon to get this, or have Amazon links all over it. Or more likely, both. Amazon would effectively have a tax on every book published.
Was that the intention then? People would drop upwards a million dollars on these things, through some altruistic motive to be more descriptive of the contents?
I just assumed it would work the same way it always has. Companies would by up the same kind of names they did before, simply making the .com redundant. I'm pretty sure that's what ICANN indented as well, as the entire scheme appears to be designed for this purpose.
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They are right and this is so obvious that anyone who disagrees should be shot as an act of mercy.
Then again, the DNS was basically fucked when they handed it to ICANN. Some things should not be run according to market dynamics.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Didn't they combine the search box with the address bar several updates ago?
I haven't typed WWW since the mid 00's. Get with the times.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Was that the intention then? People would drop upwards a million dollars on these things, through some altruistic motive to be more descriptive of the contents?
Altruism has nothing to do with this. Nothing I said implied that.
Okay, how about HTML, then which isn't based on XML bloat (HTML is based on SGML, and predates XML, although an XML serialization of the same content -- XHTML -- was introduced later, sold as a "better" successor to plain-old HTML, but with HTML5 pretty much got relegated to an parallel alternative serialization format rather than an replacement.)
What was your point then?
Mine was that these new gTLD will be treated exactly like an expensive bracket of .com domains, and the .com domain will simply be made redundant. I am not saying that is how it SHOULD be, simply stating that is how ICANN designed the scam to work. Essentially they are cutting out the market for domain squatting, and taking all that money for themselves.
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I agree. This is amazons way to try and privatize IP addressing for their benefit.
Managing a tld is not the same as managing a domain name. It is more than just dropping the .com
Then your browser is saving you as I come across sites all the time that require www.
Agree. It is a freaking mess.
I wonder what it would take to stop the release of new gTLDs at this late stage?
The gTLDs are plain daylight robbery of our common words and introduction of extremely unfair monopolies.
I suppose EU could ban the gTLDs but it doesn't seem to be of any concern yet.
"The potential for abuse seems limitless." Hyperbolize much?
I know what the fuck TLDs are, cocksucker.
Sure you do. That's why everyone else who knows what a TLD is shake their heads and chuckle softly when they read your posts.
Such a sad, angry, ill-informed little creature you are.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
What's the difference between B&N owning *.book.com and *.book, besides stripping off the now meaningless .com?
It's not meaningless. Read up on DNS.
*.book.com == a subdomain.
book.com == a domain.
*.book == a top level domain.
These are all different things, and the difference is both notable and important.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Alas, it appears I am the fool on this one.
Is applying for a new gTLD the same as buying a domain name?
No. Nowadays, organizations and individuals around the world can register second-level and, in some cases, third-level domain names. (In a URL such as maps.google.com, "google" is a second-level name and "maps" is a third-level domain.) They simply need to find an accredited registrar, comply with the registrant terms and conditions and pay registration and renewal fees. The application for a new gTLD is a much more complex process. An applicant for a new gTLD is, in fact, applying to create and operate a registry business supporting the Internet's domain name system. This involves a number of significant responsibilities, as the operator of a new gTLD is running a piece of visible Internet infrastructure.
I guess that settles it.
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