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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."

5 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Hahahahahahahaha Muahaha by binarylarry · · Score: 5, Funny

    You better call Captain Planet, South America.

    Because little Jeff Bezos ain't giving that up without a serious fight.

    --
    Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    1. Re:Hahahahahahahaha Muahaha by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Will all these stupid new TLDs even be used? Right now, how often do you go to a legitimate website (non-spam, non-scam, non-malware) that doesn't use .com, .net, .org, .gov or .edu ? I'll bet it's pretty rare.

      Creating all of these new TLDs is nothing but a money making scam for ICANN.

      Oh, not to worry, with the number of sneaky URL-lookalikes that a combination of gTLDs and unicode support will allow, it won't just be ICANN pulling off money making scams...

    2. Re:Hahahahahahahaha Muahaha by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Funny

      You better call Captain Planet, South America.

      Because little Jeff Bezos ain't giving that up without a serious fight.

      Hey, both Amazons are leading distributors of dead trees, I think we've got a serious trademark issue here.

  2. Why have TLDs at all? by Jeff+Fohl · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sometimes I wish there were no TLDs at all. They aren't really necessary. They actually make things worse, since any owner of a domain is forced to buy several TLD versions of their domain. They only make sense if you can actually enforce the meaning of the TLD, such as how .gov TLDs are enforced.

    1. 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.