Latest news of the domain name industry

Recent Posts

Amazon files appeal on rejected .amazon domain

Kevin Murphy, March 3, 2016, 20:30:13 (UTC), Domain Policy

Amazon has appealed the rejection of its proposed .amazon new gTLD.
The company this week told ICANN that it has invoked the Independent Review Process, after 18 months of informal negotiations proved fruitless.
Amazon’s .amazon application was controversially rejected by ICANN in May 2014, due to advice from the Governmental Advisory Committee.
The GAC, by a consensus, had told ICANN that .amazon should be rejected.
South American nations that share the Amazonia region of the continent had said the string was “geographic” and should therefore be unavailable to the US-based company.
The word “Amazon” is not protected by ICANN’s geographic string rules, because “Amazon” is not the name of a region, and was only rejected due to governmental interference.
The GAC’s decision came only after the US, which had been preventing consensus in order to protect one of its biggest native internet companies, decided to step aside.
Amazon has been in ICANN’s Cooperative Engagement Process — an informal set of talks designed to avoid the need for too many lawyers — since July 2014.
Those talks have now ended and Amazon has told ICANN that an IRP is incoming, according to ICANN documentation published on Tuesday (pdf).
The IRP documents themselves have not yet been published by ICANN.
UPDATE: This article originally incorrectly stated that the US withdrew its objection to the GAC consensus on .amazon after the IANA transition was announced. In fact, it did so several months prior to that announcement.


If you find this post or this blog useful or interestjng, please support Domain Incite, the independent source of news, analysis and opinion for the domain name industry and ICANN community.

Tagged: , , ,

Comments (7)

  1. Arco says:

    “…because “Amazon” is not the name of a region,…”
    come on
    STOP defending thieves.

  2. ICANN participant says:

    Didn’t those same governments objecting to the .amazon TLD issue trademarks for the name “Amazon” to Amazon.com Inc and its subsidiaries?
    Why are those governments now finding it “illegal” for Amazon to use that name commercially?

    • Rubens Kuhl says:

      Unless for some notorious marks, trademarks are allowed to block others in specific classes of goods and services. You can check whether Amazon is or isn’t in such list in Brazil:
      http://www.inpi.gov.br/menu-servicos/arquivos-dirma-1/inpimarcas_marcasdealtorenomeemvigncia_19012016.pdf
      Spoilers: Chanel, Playstation and McDonald’s and some others are; Amazon is not.
      A trademark limited to an specific class of goods & services is equivalent to a second-level registration, not to a top level registration where there is no context. So no government that allows Amazon as a trademark could complain about amazon.store, amazon.shop, amazon.music, amazon.film etc., but .amazon is something else.

  3. ICANN participant says:

    “A trademark limited to an specific class of goods & services is equivalent to a second-level registration”
    that’s a metaphor obviously.

Add Your Comment