Amazon Purchases .buy TLD For $4.6 Million

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Amazon Purchases .buy TLD For $4.6 Million

Posted by Soulskill on Friday September 19, 2014 @10:17AM from the totall-just-short-of-free-shipping dept.

onproton writes: Amazon outbid Google at the ICANN auction this week for the top-level domain .buy , to which it now has exclusive rights, paying around $4.6 million for the privilege. Google was also reportedly outbid for the .tech domain, which went for around $6.7 million. No word yet on Amazon's plans for the new domain suffix, but it's probably safe to say amazonsucks.buy will be added to Amazon's collection of reserved anti-Amazon URLs.

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i.buy by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 10:22 · Score: 0

I wonder if they would be able to use something like this or if it would be infringing on trademarks.
1. Re:i.buy by The+New+Guy+2.0 · 2014-09-19 10:41 · Score: 2
  
  ICANN should really get ready for a dispute resolution session from buy.com...
2. Re:i.buy by jeauxkewl · 2014-09-19 10:46 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Buy.com should buy buy.buy from Amazon.
3. Re: i.buy by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 11:38 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Selling entire TLDs to companies is as stupidly shortsighted as giving large IPv4 blocks to companies in the early days of the internet.
4. Re:i.buy by mythosaz · 2014-09-19 11:45 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  "Bye bye buy.buy." -Buy
5. Re: i.buy by mythosaz · 2014-09-19 11:46 · Score: 1
  
  Selling entire TLDs to companies..
  Companies like ICANN?
6. Re: i.buy by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 12:28 · Score: 0
  
  Hello u.rtn
7. Re: i.buy by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2014-09-19 14:09 · Score: 1
  
  Heh. At first glance, I misread the title as "Amazon Products buy .TLD For $4.6 Million" and then quickly realised my mistake--but now I think ICANN should sell the .tld TLD to me. :)
  
  --
  Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
8. Re: i.buy by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 14:45 · Score: 0
  
  TLDs are the new hash tags!
9. Re: i.buy by Wycliffe · 2014-09-19 14:58 · Score: 1
  
  Exactly. We really need to replace DNS with something that is distributed. Something closer to bitcoin.
  Ideally there would be a way to register a new domain and then all the nodes come to an agreement and
  after that point if there is a dispute then all the nodes can vote on who owns that domain. Something
  outside the control of any one organization or country where noone had the ability to DDOS a dns
  provider, make a website go dark by confiscating its domain, etc...
10. Re: i.buy by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 18:26 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, so that the one who has more nodes wins. A system that is totally impregnable from abuse by trojans and bugs in software.
  And totally, no country would even dream of amassing and/or taking over nodes for national security.
  Distrubution is all and well, but the Byzantine generals problem is not fixable... ever.
11. Re: i.buy by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 21:58 · Score: 0
  
  Nah. Nobody will value these new TLDs. Ever. Except these early adopters throwing away millions.
12. Re: i.buy by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-20 02:41 · Score: 0
  
  The problem is already solved.
13. Re: i.buy by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-20 07:19 · Score: 0
  
  Wrong. In the early days of the Internet (when "moderate" sized companies could get class A IPv4 network blocks), the point was to keep routing tables small. At the time few expected the Internet to become the huge international network it is today, so why not keep routing tables smaller by giving largish netblocks easily? Nowadays it would be foolish if they were still given out so easily, but back in the day it wasn't foolish. Meanwhile, selling top level domains to companies is blatantly stupid right now as they're starting to do it.
n/t by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 10:24 · Score: 0

Chinese, get your second child!
I'm sure Google will get .borg by swschrad · 2014-09-19 10:25 · Score: 1, Funny

and there really needs to be only one address in the TLD, am I right, guys?

--
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
1. Re:I'm sure Google will get .borg by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 10:29 · Score: 0
  
  OH i look forward to HTTP POST impossible images to that address...
2. Re:I'm sure Google will get .borg by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 10:39 · Score: 0
  
  PID EINS
3. Re:I'm sure Google will get .borg by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 10:50 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Let's try this. Getting an entire unimatrix is like getting an entire class A IP6 network. Completely pointless. Which is why we have just stuck with unimatrix 1.
  
  --Bill Gates
Why register amazonsucks.buy if its exclusive? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 10:26 · Score: 3, Insightful

Actually, if they have exclusive rights to .buy that means no one else is allowed to register amazonsucks.buy. So that wouldn't make any sense for them to register it at all.
1. Re:Why register amazonsucks.buy if its exclusive? by NotInHere · 2014-09-19 10:41 · Score: 1
  
  "BUY" seems to be a generic term to me.
  http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/a...
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
2. Re:Why register amazonsucks.buy if its exclusive? by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2014-09-19 14:24 · Score: 1
  
  It's the Ed Wood film festival of tech news websites, yes. Thus its charm.
  
  --
  Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
3. Re: Why register amazonsucks.buy if its exclusive? by onproton · 2014-09-19 21:50 · Score: 1
  
  Says reserved not registered, just poking a bit of fun at Amazon, couldn't help myself :)
4. Re:Why register amazonsucks.buy if its exclusive? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 22:52 · Score: 0
  
  How the fuck is wrecking a joke "Insightful", seriously you fucking mod point bastards get your shit together.
Why register amazonsucks.buy if its exclusive? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 10:32 · Score: 0

One would almost think the SlashDot editors know nothing of technology. Give that they seem to know little about editing it's probably true.
New TLDs do nothing for me... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 10:36 · Score: 0

Is it just me, or are all the new TLD's just a transparent money grab that will just make addressing have less meaning?
Limited TLD's were kind of handy, you'd 'get a vibe' from properly spelled corp. .com's, learn to be weary of .ru .cn .ca country specific domains etc.
1. Re: New TLDs do nothing for me... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-20 01:17 · Score: 0
  
  Yes, it's just you. Literally nobody has ever suggested that.
Uhm... can I block this? by The+New+Guy+2.0 · 2014-09-19 10:40 · Score: 3, Interesting

This makes no sense other than being a money grab... Amazon can now charge Barnes and Noble for bn.buy, or redirect it back to Amazon. It seems .buy will just be a redirect to some page on Amazon, or be something trademark owners must buy in order to protect. Remember .cc resulted in refunds from Clear Channel.
1. Re:Uhm... can I block this? by MrL0G1C · 2014-09-19 11:10 · Score: 2
  
  "Amazon can now charge Barnes and Noble for bn.buy, or redirect it back to Amazon"
  That nice, but no-one is going to type in bn.buy to get to Barnes and Noble. Only tech savvy people would bother typing a url into the url-bar. Most other people will type barnes into the google search box and hit down and enter.
  If Amazon where to register or redirect urls with barnes to the amazon website, they would have a trademark lawsuit on their hands.
  
  --
  Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
2. Re:Uhm... can I block this? by Tablizer · 2014-09-19 11:24 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  I don't buy your argument.
  
  --
  Table-ized A.I.
3. Re:Uhm... can I block this? by MrL0G1C · 2014-09-19 12:00 · Score: 2
  
  When's the last time you guessed at a domain name and ended it with anything other than .com, .org or the relevant country tld?
  Big companies use .com nothing has changed.
  
  --
  Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
4. Re:Uhm... can I block this? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 12:37 · Score: 0
  
  whoosh
5. Re:Uhm... can I block this? by onproton · 2014-09-19 17:23 · Score: 1
  
  +1
6. Re:Uhm... can I block this? by The+New+Guy+2.0 · 2014-09-27 09:41 · Score: 1
  
  It's the reason Clear Channel was able to promote that Coca-Cola already registered its trademark list during the .cc campaign. If Coca-Cola didn't, Pepsi would have had a shot at registering it. .buy shouldn't exist for the same reason. Everybody knows how to find .com... .buy needs something else like a better way to secure credit card numbers in order to be worth anything more than trademark problem avoidance.
7. Re:Uhm... can I block this? by The+New+Guy+2.0 · 2014-09-28 08:51 · Score: 1
  
  The new TLDs are designed so that somebody can block all porn by blocking ".xxx" and block all shopping with ".buy"... but in order for this scheme to work, they have to disable .com too.
Bestbuy is a dying company by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 10:46 · Score: 0

That would have been the best $5M they'd ever spent if they got their hands on best.buy
1. Re: Bestbuy is a dying company by bill_mcgonigle · 2014-09-19 11:15 · Score: 2
  
  People just look at domains at BestBuy, then purchase them from Amazon.
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Million? by turkeydance · 2014-09-19 10:51 · Score: 1

Dr.Evil?
congrats, ICANN! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 10:52 · Score: 0

You now have $6.7 million. And Amazon's three serious .buy domain customers will be pleased to return at least 1% of this.
Mod parent up for the LOVE OF KHHHAAAANNNN!!! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 11:01 · Score: 0

mod parent up. me as well. i r phunny

captcha: captains
ICANN sell to the highest bidder by CopaceticOpus · 2014-09-19 11:02 · Score: 3, Interesting

Wikipedia states:

ICANN's primary principles of operation have been described as helping preserve the operational stability of the Internet; to promote competition; to achieve broad representation of the global Internet community; and to develop policies appropriate to its mission through bottom-up, consensus-based processes.
This auction is a blatant contradiction of these principles. An auction does promote a narrow sort of competition, technically, but anyone who didn't have millions of dollars to spare had no opportunity to participate. Now that Amazon has won, the competition is over, and the global Internet community can go broadly fuck themselves.
We should expect much better from the non-profit organization in charge of the world's domain names.
1. Re:ICANN sell to the highest bidder by Obfuscant · 2014-09-19 11:09 · Score: 1
  
  Now that Amazon has won, the competition is over, and the global Internet community can go broadly fuck themselves.
  Yeah, because it isn't like anyone can go get a domain name in some other TLD and still have a viable and active web presence or anything. It's over. The Internet belongs to Jeff Bezos. Film at 11.
2. Re:ICANN sell to the highest bidder by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 11:54 · Score: 0
  
  Really? You don't think selling out an entire TLD is a little wonky?
  I really don't care about .buy, but isn't this a little odd when ICANN could just create any number of bullshit TLD's and auction them off for huge profits to companies while everyone else has no chance? As others have said, it's just a money grab. This isn't how shit is meant to be. If you can't see that, then I worry about you.
3. Re:ICANN sell to the highest bidder by Obfuscant · 2014-09-19 12:34 · Score: 1
  
  Really? You don't think selling out an entire TLD is a little wonky?
  No, I don't. It's not like there is only one and Amazon got it. There are a large number already and more will be created in the future.
  
  but isn't this a little odd when ICANN could just create any number of bullshit TLD's and auction them off for huge profits to companies while everyone else has no chance?
  
  So what if you can't get a domain in the .buy TLD? Big deal. The only issue would be where the money goes, not that Amazon got a TLD of its own. Who makes a profit from ICANN domain sales?
  
  If you can't see that, then I worry about you.
  Yeah, if I'm not all doom and gloom about one TLD, that didn't exist yesterday so already had no registrations, not allowing you to register a name tomorrow, it must be my problem and not one of chicken little's.
  What is your problem? You couldn't have a domain name under .buy yesterday, you won't be able to get one tomorrow. What's the big difference? What's changed?
4. Re:ICANN sell to the highest bidder by BitZtream · 2014-09-19 12:37 · Score: 1
  
  We should expect more from people who post on slashdot ... sadly, its silly to have expectations.
  TLDs have certain requirements associated with them, unless Amazon magically also has some super special secret deal that Google hasn't told the world about after losing ... then Amazon won't be able to monopolize or otherwise use the TLD to an unfair advantage.
  They can set certain things related to how the TLD operates, but they don't get it all to themselves. They didn't buy a TLD for themselves, they bought the right to run a TLD under ICANNs guidelines.
  
  --
  Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
5. Re:ICANN sell to the highest bidder by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2014-09-19 14:30 · Score: 1
  
  You're completely missing the point.
  Why should ICANN get to have a free money machine, and what do they intend to spend it on?
  
  --
  Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
6. Re:ICANN sell to the highest bidder by Obfuscant · 2014-09-19 15:34 · Score: 1
  
  You're completely missing the point. Why should ICANN get to have a free money machine, and what do they intend to spend it on?
  Maybe that's why I said the following in what you replied to?
  
  The only issue would be where the money goes, not that Amazon got a TLD of its own. Who makes a profit from ICANN domain sales?
  The issue seemed to be that Amazon was getting a TLD and ending competition and nobody else had any chance anymore. That's what the people I replied to complained about. Not the "free money machine".
7. Re:ICANN sell to the highest bidder by CopaceticOpus · 2014-09-19 17:22 · Score: 1
  
  I hope you are right! I haven't seen that stated anywhere else.
  If you are right, then you should really complain about the original submission, which states that Amazon "now has exclusive rights" to the domain and that there is "no word yet on Amazon's plans for the new domain suffix." That certainly reads like they're getting it all to themselves.
8. Re:ICANN sell to the highest bidder by ultranova · 2014-09-19 21:17 · Score: 1
  
  TLDs have certain requirements associated with them, unless Amazon magically also has some super special secret deal that Google hasn't told the world about after losing ... then Amazon won't be able to monopolize or otherwise use the TLD to an unfair advantage.
  
  And yet that's exactly what Amazon will do. Even if they run their registry business as a separate department, the conflict of interests is always there. It's exactly like an ISP who also provides content has an incentive to make connections to Netflix suck.
  Perhaps it would be best to simply forbid companies from expanding to arbitrary new segments?
  
  --
  Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Sounds like no-one has faith in these new TLDs by wonkey_monkey · 2014-09-19 11:05 · Score: 2

Google was also reportedly outbid for the .tech domain, which went for around $6.7 million.
Outbid at a paltry $6.7m? Sounds to me like Google had zero real interest.

--
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
1. Re: Sounds like no-one has faith in these new TLDs by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 12:35 · Score: 0
  
  I'm waiting 'til all these big companies bid each other out over the commercial value of the usual consumer related memes. Then Ima swoop in and scoop on .wtf ftw!
2. Re:Sounds like no-one has faith in these new TLDs by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 14:27 · Score: 0
  
  seriously, all of these figures are chump change for Google and Amazon. There's no way they possibly have much interest in these TLDs
3. Re:Sounds like no-one has faith in these new TLDs by AmiMoJo · 2014-09-19 20:16 · Score: 1
  
  Perhaps they realised that most of them will be close to worthless and mainly serve to make blocking particular companies easier.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
fucking works. But no content has been added, yet by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 11:11 · Score: 0

fucking works. But no content has been added, yet
Re:fucking works. But no content has been added, y by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 11:19 · Score: 0

now you have fucked yourself. apparently you have a webserver on 127.0.53.53:
$ dig fuck.ing
[...] ;; ANSWER SECTION:
fuck.ing. 132 IN A 127.0.53.53
Rumor has it by Tablizer · 2014-09-19 11:26 · Score: 1

Amazon discovered it was for sale when they visited "buy.buy".

--
Table-ized A.I.
ICANN sell to the highest bidder by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 12:01 · Score: 0

But does this really hurt you somehow? So what if amazon and a bunch of other companies blew a bunch of money on .buy
Does anyone really care about TLD these days? Does it matter that it's slashdot.org and not slashdot.com? Will it matter if someone registers slashdot.buy? No because anyone looking for the site will just google it and click the top link.
Odd investment by manu0601 · 2014-09-19 14:07 · Score: 1

I seriously doubt there are millions to make from a TLD. This is an odd investment.
The smart guys are the one that managed to sell a TLD at that price. Who wins the money paid for new TLD auctions, BTW?
com by dohzer · 2014-09-19 14:15 · Score: 1

I wonder how much they would sell the .com TLD for? Hmmm.
TLDs by sixsixtysix · 2014-09-19 14:26 · Score: 1

should just be registered like ALL domains. let it be first come, first serve, and charge just a little bit more. so amazon could just get .amazon, etc. it makes way more sense than "oh noes, we can't have these tlds in the wild!". can current dns systems not handle that?

--
...
Google control the value of the TLDs by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-19 15:14 · Score: 0

On face value, it appears that the new TLDs give an unfair advantage to companies with "money to burn".
However, how valuable they end up being will be largely decided by Google. Why? Google can choose how much "search engine juice" to allocate to each of the new TLDs.
If Google were to decide that they were on a par with crappy domain names such as .tk or .biz, then they won't show up very well in search results, and would therefore be fairly useless. People rarely enter URLs directly into the main bar, so without Google's support, the new TLDs would just be an expensive joke.
1. Re:Google control the value of the TLDs by ledow · 2014-09-19 22:34 · Score: 1
  
  Google won the search wars because it ignored what content providers thought should be top of the listings (but let them buy ads), and put what search USERS should be top of the listings. That's how it got where it is and why it's stayed where it is. That's why there are entire businesses based around trying to get your site to the top of Google without getting chucked off their listings - because it's not as easy as just asking, or paying, or tricking Google.
  Hence, if ".buy" suddenly starts getting to tops of listings where you have no reason or interest of it being there, then Google will suffer - as well as ".buy"
  Decent search made domain names obsolete. I don't even know the domain of many of my favourite sites, but I know an exact Google search that will list them in the top 10 if I ever need them (e.g. I lose my bookmarks). That's why I don't get why people still are buying anything more than a single, relevant domain for themselves.
  Seriously, what difference do you get in search rankings if you search from a mobile? Google knows you're on mobile. You can search for mobile terms. Now how many of those results are actually of ".mobi" sites?
  TLD's and domain names are money-grabs. They only have any effect on "dumb" search engines that are already selling your entire front page to the highest bidder.
Greatest price war ever by Jumunquo · 2014-09-19 17:33 · Score: 4, Funny

Wait until they auction off the .sucks TLD!
1. Re:Greatest price war ever by The+New+Guy+2.0 · 2014-09-27 09:42 · Score: 1
  
  Yep. Coca-Cola.sucks controlled by Pepsi, Pepsi.sucks controlled by Coca-Cola... what could go wrong?
Well, that was pointless by hackertourist · 2014-09-19 20:32 · Score: 1

The idiocy of new TLDs is revealed for what it is: a way for ICANN to make money. None of this makes things better for website owners or consumers.
Anti Amazon blacklist by Neelix21 · 2014-09-19 21:05 · Score: 1

No word yet on Amazon's plans for the new domain suffix, but it's probably safe to say amazonsucks.buy will be added to Amazon's collection of reserved anti-Amazon URLs.
No it won't be added to that list, because Amazon now controls this TLD. It controls what kind of domains appear there. It may not even open this to others.

--
Don't worry, it's all just 1's and 0's anyway...
Time to dissolve ICANN? by Wootery · 2014-09-19 21:30 · Score: 1

How much of this nonsense are we going to let them get away with?
One of the few points of centralisation on the Internet, and sure enough, they're screwing us.
How one would go about killing ICANN, I don't know...