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The Amazon Rainforest Wants Its TLD Back From Amazon.com

Posted by samzenpus on from the take-it-back dept.

terrancem writes "The Seattle-based Amazon.com has applied for its brand to be a generic top-level domain name (.amazon), but South American governments argue this would prevent the use of this internet address for environmental protection, the promotion of indigenous rights and other public interest uses. Along with dozens of other disputed claims to names including ".patagonia" and ".shangrila", the issue cuts to the heart of debates about the purpose and governance of the internet."

4 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. WWF by fermion · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Even the World Wrestling Federation eventually caved in to the world wildlife fund. It may have been for tax purposes, entertainment is treated differently than sport, but one does not win against the earth people.

    What Bezos needs to do buy and fund a TLD for the amazon. Obviously it is not going to be amazon. On the webpages have a link redirecting to the new domain. It will likely avoid huge legal costs and generate a good deal of good will.

    --
    "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
  2. This Mess Was Predicted by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Lots of people predicted that this new TLD system was going to be a mess. And... it is. Seems like it has become even more of a mess each month that goes by.

    I really have to wonder why anybody would have thought that it would NOT be a mess.

  3. Re:Why have TLDs at all? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I agree, then we could organize the WWW in some meaningful way -> alt.technology. And then instead of twitter/faceook being the defacto stanard for communication, we could use IRC. Just imagine how much better the world would be if people didn't reinvent things that do a worse job then the original.

  4. Re:Hahahahahahahaha Muahaha by rudy_wayne · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I go to .ca every days. I live in Canada. I also visit a lot of .fr, .de, .se and .uk, to name a few.

    So do I but that's not what I'm talking about. I don't know how it works, but I would imagine that I can't register a .ca domain if I'm not in Canada. (If you can then the system is even more fucked up than I thought).

    But anyone can register a domain using one of the hundreds of proposed new domains. And with the combination of those new TLDs, Unicode and a shady registrar, people will be able to create all sorts of sneaky look-a-like websites. Sure, they're doing that now, but things are about to get a whole lot worse.

    And meanwhile, nobody is going to type whatever.amazon into their web browser. They're just going to keep going to amazon.com. It's their name. In all of their advertisements, including TV commercials, they don't call themselves Amazon. They call themselves Amazon Dot Com.