The Nations of the Amazon Want the Name Back

Online retail giant Amazon and the governments of eight South American countries have been given a final deadline to reach an agreement over how to use the ".amazon" web address extension after a seven-year dispute. From a report: What will happen next? It's a name that evokes epic proportions: the world's largest rainforest; a global tech company; and now a diplomatic saga nearing its end. This is the battle of the Amazon and it starts back in 2012. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the body that polices the world wide web's address system, decided to expand its list of generic top-level domains (gTLD) - the bit that comes after the dot in a web address. The new rules allowed companies to apply for brand new extensions, offering internet users and businesses more ways to personalise their website name and addresses. But eight countries containing the Amazon rainforest objected to the retail giant's plans concerning the new .amazon domain name.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I am concerned, neither Amazon (the business) nor these 8 countries have any automatic right to domain names that contain the word amazon. The first to apply should get and get to keep the domain name. Just like Microsoft should not have been able to take over domain names containing the word microsoft from their original owners!

Re:Considering that those nations are busy destroy

[msauve]

Considering that Amazon comes from ancient Greek, and refers to a tribe of women warriers, I'd say it's "first come, first served." The countries simply don't have any better claim to use of the word than the company.

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[MightyMartian]

So really, the residents of Lesbos should have first kick at the can.

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[Chris Mattern]

Well, no, the Amazons weren't Lesbians (well, some of them may have been lesbians, but they weren't from Lesbos). In fact, they weren't even Greek, "Amazon" was simply the Greek name for them. Supposedly they originally came from Lybia but migrated to Anatolia (modern Turkey, before the Turks took it over). The general modern opinion is that they were in fact a Greek myth. Unfortunately, the fun etymology that "amazon" derives from the ancient Greek "a-mazos" "without a breast" seems to be false.

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[Hognoxious]

The general modern opinion is that they were in fact a Greek myth.

Perhaps among those who haven't heard of the Scythians and their female horse archers.

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[angel'o'sphere]

Amazon, the company in the US, the book shop, the retailer, is not the only company called amazon.

http://www.pttmcc.com/new/cafe... [pttmcc.com]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

The coffee they offer is actually quite good.

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[PolygamousRanchKid]

Considering that Amazon comes from ancient Greek, and refers to a tribe of women warriers, I'd say it's "first come, first served."

Why should the Greeks name a river in South America?

Just rename the river. What do the Yanomamis and their pals call it . . . ?

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[Gavagai80]

No need to change the name, because none of the countries that have the Amazon river call it that, since they don't speak English. It's el río Amazonas. They can register that .amazonas gTLD.

The Nations of the Amazon Want the Name Back

[The Grim Reefer]

Jeff Bezos had this problem all worked out until his wife got the money he was going to use to buy those countries outright.

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[JaredOfEuropa]

Anyone can apply for a TLD as long as you own any applicable copyright. In case the TLD covers a geographic region, the ICANN panel determines if the domain should be under governmental control: apparently there is a sub-board that looks at this stuff. That is clearly the case for national TLDs, might also be the case for TLDs covering states or provinces that have their own governments. It is much less clear in this case, with the TLD covering a somewhat arbitrary geographic region that spans 8 countri

Still dumb

[Anonymous Coward]

I still think all these new TLDs are a stupid idea.

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[Kernel Kurtz]

I still think all these new TLDs are a stupid idea.

I agree completely. Now that *.tld and *.*.tld are no longer enough, we have *.*.*

Might as well just get rid of the dots entirely.

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[msauve]

"Might as well just get rid of the dots entirely."

If we're just going to use hostnames, I claim "loopback"!

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[JaredOfEuropa]

You already have it.

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[msauve]

Yep. But now I can make you stop using it.

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[omnichad]

Might as well go back to AOL Keywords.

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[kingbilly]

I'm not too fond of any of them. How many people care if it's a .com or .org or .countrycode?

I think that number is low. Much lower than the companies who paid for the new TLDs were hoping. Looking at my wife, my siblings, my parents, etc browsing habits, I don't think they even know what website they are on half the time. They primarily reach a website from a social media post, or from a Google search. Heck, on my phone I am guilty of this. The last dozen searches for a recipe, I used a Google search and never paid attention to what URL I was visiting. Once I found the recipe that seemed good for

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[Chelloveck]

Chuck out the gTLDs. Yes, all of them. Go to using ccTLDs only. This very clearly defines jurisdictions in which to settle disputes. Countries can manage their TLDs any way they like. Tuvalu wants to make a buck selling *.tv to all comers? Let 'em. North Korea wants to limit *.kp to only government-approved outlets? More power to them. Some huge megacorp wants to flaunt a global online presence? They can jolly well negotiate for a name with each individual country's TLD.

Works out for everyone. Well, ex

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[argStyopa]

Of course it is, it's revenue farming.

Cocacola.com will of COURSE not let cocacola.amazon fall into anyone's hands, so essentially opening a new TLD means all the big name domains are nearly guaranteed to simply cough up the $ to grab their same moniker on all the new TLDs. It's like free money.

Give them ".theamazon" instead

[Rick Schumann]

Or something similar. Problem solved.

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[MitchDev]

".amazonjungle" The Amazon Jungle isn't a country, it's a jungle

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[Rick Schumann]

ICANN started authorizing more TLDs than those because all the sensible ones were used up, ya dummy.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[pak9rabid]

.theRealAmazon

Take the third option

[Experiment 626]

The near eastern warrior women were Amazons a couple millennia before some web site was founded or rivers in the New World started getting European names.

geographical designators

[RLBrown]

Traditionally, TLDs have been used to either designate a general usage category, e.g. commercial, education, military, government, and so forth, or designate a geographic area of origin, e.g. us, ch, de, and so forth. The geographical designator has been abused, for example, the use of the "tv" designation. However, if we keep with this tradition, then obviously the "amazon" domain can only refer to the geographical region of Themyscira, which by a very long period predates the usage in southern new world continent.

Peers

[jythie]

It is always kinda scary to see individual companies acting as peers or even superiors to entire nations like this. The idea of a single private entity getting an entire gTLD for its own private use instead of it going to a general usage or geographic region should have been laughed out of the suggestion box. While I am not surprised that ICANN seriously entertained the idea, I am annoyed.

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[thegarbz]

Depends. Did they attempt to register it? Or are they just upset that someone else did and registered in protest. Frankly a rainforest does not deserve a donation name over an internet giant. And conversely the same applies to Amazon if they wanted to build a distribution centre in the actual Amazon.

It's nothing new

[rsilvergun]

see here [wikipedia.org]. It's been like this since trade became a thing.

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[ShanghaiBill]

see here [wikipedia.org]. It's been like this since trade became a thing.

Indeed. It was much worse in the past, when companies raised armies and waged war in their own name [wikipedia.org].

Today's multinationals are toothless compared to their predecessors.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Even if they did get the .amazon TLD, what would the URL for the shop then be? "amazon.amazon"? Would what is now something like "amazon.co.jp" become "japan.amazon"?

Or are they going for something like "books.amazon" or "screwextractors.amazon" or "sexbots.amazon"?

"washingtonpost.amazon"

They aren't prime

[hawguy]

Do any of those Amazonian countries offer 2-day prime shipping? I think not.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Rename the company Nile

[turp182]

Longest river in the world, #1!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

ÂHablan inglés?

[TinyTheBrontosaurus]

so there's a bunch of Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries that want to have the English spelling in their TLD? why don't they fight over .amazonas or .amazona?

scorchio

[Hognoxious]

It's ethethetheth or something like that. Viva El Presidente!

Anyone can have a gTLD.

[brunes69]

Anyone can have a gTLD.

You could apply for, and receive, *.jythie if you want.

Why? Because its a money making scheme, that's why. gTLDs force companies down this path where they either try to protect their trademark or have it trampled over. In return registrars generate millions of dollars registering gTLDs that aren't even used