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Government Earth The Internet

The Amazon Rainforest Wants Its TLD Back From Amazon.com 186

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."
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The Amazon Rainforest Wants Its TLD Back From Amazon.com

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  • by binarylarry ( 1338699 ) on Thursday April 25, 2013 @09:19PM (#43552063)

    You better call Captain Planet, South America.

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

    • by rudy_wayne ( 414635 ) on Thursday April 25, 2013 @09:24PM (#43552093)

      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.

      • by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Thursday April 25, 2013 @09:27PM (#43552105) Journal

        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...

        • ICANN could make even more money:

          Once you visit ".amazon", you'd see a page saying: "which amazon did you mean? the rainforest, or the bookstore?"
          This would allow them to sell the TLD more than once. And, on the redirection page, they could show some ads as well!

      • 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.

        • by rudy_wayne ( 414635 ) on Thursday April 25, 2013 @09:57PM (#43552273)

          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.

          • by ozmanjusri ( 601766 ) <.moc.liamtoh. .ta. .bob_eissua.> on Thursday April 25, 2013 @10:20PM (#43552371) Journal

            nobody is going to type whatever.amazon into their web browser. They're just going to keep going to amazon.com.

            That's a very short-sighted way of looking at it.

            Think "rivers.amazon, fauna.amazon, flora.amazon, etc" or alternatively, "books.amazon, movies.amazon, cheap_crap.amazon etc".

            • That's a very short-sighted way of looking at it.

              Think "books.amazon, movies.amazon, cheap_crap.amazon etc".

              And nobody is going to do that. Amazon had spent many years branding themselves as Amazon Dot Com.

              • People are going to do neither of these things. They will just type "Amazon" into their search/address bar hybrid, which is pretty much just a GoogleSpyBar now, where page ranks are what the difference between your bank and a phishing site are.

                Maybe Google will start allowing people to purchase their names so that a search for "Amazon" goes to amazon.com versus a search landing page.


                Do no evil.(tm)
            • And rivers.amazon will send you to a site selling books about rivers.

              Remember: the .amazon tld is, when it's issued, controlled by the book selling company Amazon, Inc. It's effectively shorthand for amazon.com.

            • And whats wrong with books.amazon.com, or amazon.com/books ?

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Anonymous Coward

            You may not be able to register a .ca from outside Canada, but you can register .cx outside Christmas Island .tv outside Tuvalu .bz outside Belize .to outside Tonga .mx outside Mexico .es outside Spain .in outside India

            This is not a complete list -- for example, I haven't mentioned that you can register .cc outside the Cocos Islands. I'm just pointing out that you can register some country code TLDs outside that country. That's probably true of most .tv domains and is possible even with larger countries l

            • by Dahamma ( 304068 )

              First I was thinking allowing any corporation to control a TLD seemed stupid and against the spirit of ICANN/"The Internet" - but you make an interesting point. If *.amazon guarantees you are going to an Amazon site and *.amazontypo isn't allowed because TLDs are carefully allocated instead of allowing any phisher to do it on Godaddy, it might be a good thing in that respect, at least...

            • you can register .cx outside Christmas Island

              Quick, a spoon! I need to gouge my eyes out real quick!
              (btw, that would have worked just as well with .ca, cz, and ch a couple of years ago...)

          • by Sun ( 104778 )

            You can in some countries, and cannot in others. co.il is open, AFAIK, to everyone. Some countries ("tv" and "to", for example) are explicitly open to everyone, so much so that hardly anyone in that domain is from that country. Effectively, these are as generic as "biz" and "info", possibly even more so.

            On the other hand, both "net" and "com" used to require presence in the USA for the critical first years of the Internet. Back in 1996, a company I worked for had to create a POB in the US just to register a

          • by hjf ( 703092 )

            Not necessarily. my shop is called "arcana" and i wanted a .na domain: "arca.na". it was available (and I dont live in Namibia) but for $2K/yr...

          • Many countries allow foreigners to register domains with them. Ever used bit.ly? That ly is Libya. What about goo.gl? The gl is for Greenland. Stuff that ends in .to? Tonga. Quite a few do not, of course, but a few of them have opened them up and seen widespread use as a result.

            As for people registering domains under the new TLDs, those TLDs are not all open for public use. In fact, the vast majority of them are not open to public use at all. Amazon certainly isn't going to be letting you register rudy_wayn

          • For many of the country TLDs (e.g. .ch and .in) you are meant to have an address in that country. For some of them you even have to actually live there. But for many, e.g. .tv, .me, .be and other European and Pacific Island ones, you can register whatever, and however many you want, so long as you have the cash.

            The system is fucked. Who would have thought it.

        • I only regularly visit one .cx, though.

      • by TheLink ( 130905 )

        In contrast more than a decade ago I proposed a .here TLD (something like RFC1918 IPv4 addresses but for TLDs) to both the IETF: http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-yeoh-tldhere-01 [ietf.org] and the ICANN.

        People back then said use .local or .localhost. But:
        1) AFAIK these weren't even officially reserved either! .local was only reserved as of Feb 2013.
        2) .local etc would be more for "machine usage" - existing stuff already use these things in certain ways (Apple's Bonjour). .local might be filled by with hostnames, where

      • by Sun ( 104778 )

        I am well aware that Americans, as a rule, have trouble seeing past the end of their noses, but just to answer your question, I go to .co.il sites all the time. I operate a couple of .org.il sites. My own site (which is mostly used for personal email) operates at biz (check out my email address to verify it's not spam).

        I also, fairly commonly, browse to country sites outside of my own. co.uk is not unheard of in my browser's history.

        Yes, the "generic" TLDs are the most sought after, and I highly doubt the n

      • 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.

        On the contrary, it's daily, and multiple domains.

        All of which are ccTLDs however, and I completely agree about
        the stupidity and uselessness of TLD spam.

        All "big players" will want to register their name with all new TLDs to redirect to
        their canonical ones. I smirk at something like http://google.amazon - now where
        will you end up with that one? Phising just isn't easy enough nowadays, right?

        • 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.

          On the contrary, it's daily, and multiple domains.

          My original statement was poorly worded. I was referring to .info, .biz and all those, Not country-specific ones like .uk, .ca or .au. . I have yet to see any widespread usage of .biz or .info or any of the many other TLDs that exist. All comments I have ever seen have been along the lines of "I registered a [whatever] domain name and it never took off" or "People get confused and think my website is "something.biz.com" due to the fact that so many people associate dot com with the Internet.

          And

          • by Sun ( 104778 )

            And, even when websites use country-specific domains, I see a lot them still using dot com with it -- for example "website.com.au"

            That's just ignorance on your part, I'm afraid.

            Some countries choose to have only a closed set of second level domain names under the country TLD. You see "com.au" because you cannot register "rudy.au" if you tried (yes, it's available :-). Same goes for "co.il" and "co.uk". Under others, the second level is free for all, such as ".fr" and ".tv". Each country decides for itself h

      • Well I quite frequently use .uk websites, but your point is still valid.

      • If you also discount the original crop of nationalised TLDs (eg: co.uk), then my browser history would indeed suggest it's pretty rare. However, past results are no guide to future performance and I'm sure there are some pretty smart, creative mofos out there who'd have a field day with the new TLDs.

        And I don't care who you are or what you sell, nations should get priority to TLDs over commercial entities. Bezos can go **** himself, over-inflated little ****.

      • All the fucking time. Considering that my own website is on a .info and that I manage websites on country TLDs.

        That doesn't mean that the new GTLDs are not scams by ICANN, but still.

        I've said it before, I think the best bet is a distributed trust based system of domain management. PGP-like Web of Trust. Internet, make it happen!

      • 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.

        All the time. .de, .it, .uk, .fr.................

      • 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.

        Clearly you're American. I go to .uk sites all the time. The french go to .fr etc...

        And I can certainly see the benefit of porn being swept away to it's own .xxx domain.

        But yes, .amazon seems pointless for both the company and the geographical area. I suspect the company doesn't even want to use it as their primary domain, but just to stop anyone else using it.

        I suggest that companies should never be allowed to own their own TLD. TLDs are for broad categorisations and a single company is never that.

    • by Freshly Exhumed ( 105597 ) on Thursday April 25, 2013 @09:28PM (#43552117) Homepage

      There's this group of women from Mars outside waiting to meet Bezos. They said something about his puny weapon being no match for their own.

    • by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Thursday April 25, 2013 @09:29PM (#43552119) Journal

      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.

    • You better call Captain Planet, South America.

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

      Obviously, Jeff can't see the forest for the trees...

  • by Jeff Fohl ( 597433 ) on Thursday April 25, 2013 @09:27PM (#43552103) Homepage
    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.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25, 2013 @09:50PM (#43552231)

      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.

      • That'll also have the pleasant^H^H^H^Hhorrible side effect of keeping all the stupid people out of any conversations. OH GOD FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Until eventually someone once again comes up with the bright idea of websitizing (honest to goodness word) IRC.

      • 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.

        In the past I would have said the same, but these days I think that IRC is a clunky old piece of shit that has begged a redesign for a decade.

    • If they were used as intended, it would matter, but with all the campers you can't get the domain you want anyway (without shelling out a ton of cash).

      • Sorry to pop your myth but over the past decade I've registered several domains, and so far haven't even had to modify my name a little bit to find an available name. There are plenty of names available - unless you insist on <generic word>.com instead of <your company name>.com - replace .com by your own country's tld and you've got even more options.

        Just now I'm building up a new site, planning to register a name for it, and again: no problem. The name that I wanted is available. And this time

        • by Splab ( 574204 )

          Well, what then, when several companies have the same name? Just the US ones getting their name and everyone else has to change theirs or?

          • Use their country's TLD of course. Like the US should have their own TLD, and use it too. that's what they are for.

            Now my company also has a .com while I'm really local .hk but that's to do with cost (.com is much cheaper) and ease of registration (back then it wasn't that easy to get a .hk domain as it is now - .com was dead easy though).

    • AOL tried doing this with "keywords" without much success.

    • By nature of the beast you have TLDs. Whether these are .com or .amazon - the last part of the domain name is a TLD. There is no way around it. Just like area codes and country codes on telephone numbers (but written the other way around), they help in sorting out some of the mess.

      The problem of course lies in how these TLDs are organised and managed. Having a few world-wide domains (.com, .org, .net, etc) plus national domains that can also basically be assigned world-wide is the big issue. Ditching these

    • 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. .

      You don't understand. Yes, it's worse for you. But it's great for ICANN because it generates lots of money.

    • by Hentes ( 2461350 )

      Without TLDs, a single namespace wouldn't be enough for all domains to fit in it. Furthermore, national TLDs are necessary so that governments can manage their own portion of the internet. Nobody is forced to buy more than one domain, but if they do they have to negotiate with its previous owners, ensuring that only companies who do business in the country will try to buy a local domain. The problem is with generic TLDs only.

      • by cdrudge ( 68377 )

        Without TLDs, a single namespace wouldn't be enough for all domains to fit in it.

        Sure it would. Some domain names just wouldn't be able to have domain names of their first choice. With 64 character limit for a domain name, and the 37 different characters available in non-internationalized domain names, there's 37^64 unique domain names available, significantly larger than the estimated number of particles in the known universe.

  • WWF (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fermion ( 181285 ) on Thursday April 25, 2013 @09:29PM (#43552121) Homepage Journal
    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.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      WWF (the wrestlers) had a 1994-era legal agreement [archive.org] concerning international use of the wwf abbreviation which fucked them over.
    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      They both missed an opportunity to merge and create the Wildlife Wrestling Foundation. TV series dedicated to wildlife wrestling could have supported both groups.

    • I was wondering whatever became of the Panda smackdown.

    • I think there is a big difference here, though. World Wildlife Federation is an existing entity, whereas this is just a collection of small and fairly insignificant governments with very little political clout. I also think that the wrestling people probably figured it was a battle not worth fighting, especially after having gone through the whole WCW>WWF merger. At that point, changing the name again wasn't really a big deal.

      Besides, it gave them an excuse to use macho advertising like "WWE: Get the

  • by Megahard ( 1053072 ) on Thursday April 25, 2013 @09:33PM (#43552131)

    After all, that's the origin of the name.

    • And what about mythological warrior women?

      The mythological warror woman lobby doesn't have as much influence as it used to. But I hear they're having a comeback.

    • by geekoid ( 135745 )

      "that's the origin of the name."
      no it isn't, it comes from Iran.

      What? you think they made up new words to describe the women warriors in the stories that were telling?

  • by giorgist ( 1208992 ) on Thursday April 25, 2013 @09:36PM (#43552161)
    The original Amazons called and they want their name back from the rain forest.
  • by Jane Q. Public ( 1010737 ) on Thursday April 25, 2013 @09:39PM (#43552169)
    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.
    • I really have to wonder why anybody would have thought that it would NOT be a mess

      Everyone has reasons to delude themselves. Making tonnes and tonnes of cash for doing nothing is a reason.

  • Haha, well I thought the free market was the savior and one true holy way to organize everything. Just let them settle it that way, bid it out.

  • by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Thursday April 25, 2013 @09:48PM (#43552215)
    Amazon the company could be amazon.com. Amazon the environmental organization could be amazon.org (if it weren't parked and likely squatted). Amazon the ISP (if there was one) coupld be amazon.net. etc.

    But noooo, some bozos in charge decided that increasing the number of namespace collisions will somehow be better for their bank accou^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hthe Internet.
    • Note that there's no company called "Amazon". The one that's behind http://amazon.com/ [amazon.com] is actually registered as Amazon.com, Inc.

      • Well, fuck. They really screwed themselves over, didn't they? "Our new URL: amazon.com.amazon"

      • by dlgeek ( 1065796 )
        And they have many subsidiaries [wikinvest.com] including:
        • Amazon Services LLC
        • Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
        • Amazon Web Services, Inc.
        • Amazon EU SÃrl
        • Amazon Europe Holding Technologies SCS
        • Amazon Fulfillment Services, Inc.
        • Amazon Services International, Inc.
        • Amazon Corporate LLC
        • Amazon Technologies, Inc.

        which all use the term "Amazon" without the ".com".

  • No one makes you use any particular DNS server tree. In fact you can use many. You could even have a search path for various trees. This is why it is dumb for Government/courts to block/take domain names. One can always use an alt DNS system that is out of reach from the law. That domain name system could be searched first and then fall back on the IANA one.

    • Great opportunity for squatters/scammers. With all its drawbacks I still prefer the current system over your proposal. It's just that much more reliable.

  • How are the pipfruit producers of the world doing in their battle to reclaim their good name form the company formerly run by Steve Jobs?

  • This may be an odd perspective, but I see this as a question of which philosophy do you agree with more?

    (a) I work to live
    (b) I live to work

    I think that people who believe (a) are going to think that the .amazon TLD should go to some sort of amazon conservatory organization because life is more important than commerce.

    While I would expect those who identify with (b) to be in favor of amazon.com owning the .amazon TLD. Because for those people, business is more important than life. Maybe not their life, but

    • This may be an odd perspective, but I see this as a question of which philosophy do you agree with more?

      (a) I work to live
      (b) I live to work

      I think that people who believe (a) are going to think that the .amazon TLD should go to some sort of amazon conservatory organization because life is more important than commerce.

      While I would expect those who identify with (b) to be in favor of amazon.com owning the .amazon TLD. Because for those people, business is more important than life. Maybe not their life, but life of the general population.

      Obviously I think (b) is a very small group. However, as small as it is, I would not be surprised to find that group (b) is largely populated by CxO types.

      It's neither. The issue here, in my opinion, is putting things to good use and avoiuding confusion (and potential mischief). Creating a TLD of .amazon makes no sense.

      If you give it to "some amazon conservatory organization" how many websites are they actually going to create with a URL of "something.amazon"? One? Two? What's wrong with "conserveamazon.org" or something like that? Where is the need for an entire new TLD?

      If you give it to amazon (the business), what's the point? They have spent years

      • by geekoid ( 135745 )

        And The Amazon spent decades with the name and branding themselves before Amazon.com existed.

  • by Brucelet ( 1857158 ) on Thursday April 25, 2013 @11:28PM (#43552631)
    If ICANN were actually managing this crap sanely it wouldn't be that hard to share. No reason that conservation.amazon and shopping.amazon couldn't both exist under different ownership.
    • If ICANN were actually managing this crap sanely it wouldn't be that hard to share. No reason that conservation.amazon and shopping.amazon couldn't both exist under different ownership.

      Exactly! No one should own a top level domain. Imagine if the internet started that way and one company bought the entire .com TLD. This is exactly what we are seeing now.

  • ...and they want their "something or other" back.

    Oh, we're not doing that?

  • That sound you hear? Jon Postel [wikipedia.org] has been spinning so much he broke a bearing. Again.

  • Nobody has used .amazon yet and nobody has forgotten about the bloody rainforest before it existed.

    Also its South American governments that are stripping the rainforest clean, not sure they want to shine a brighter light on that...all they have to do is just stop doing that and the problem is solved.

  • NOBODY is going to use anything but a .com ending so it really doesn't matter.
  • Forests get more pissed off than Lakes when you anthropomorphise them. They reeeeealy hate it.
    Not as much as Mountains, but still. I'd stay away and pay up if I were Amazon. Or ex-Amazon

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