Amazon’s bid to own and operate .amazon as a new, generic top-level domain (gTLD) has been rejected.
ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers — the governing body of the web’s domain name system — has sided with the recommendation from its Governmental Advisory Committee in rejecting the company’s bid to get .amazon as well as the Chinese and Japanese translations of its name.
The folks at Domain Incite explain what it means for Amazon this way:
That basically means all three applications are frozen until Amazon withdraws them, wins some kind of appeal, manages to change the GAC’s mind, or successfully sues.
As we reported last summer, several South American nations objected to Amazon’s application because the word “amazon” is an important geographic name in their area. The International Trademark Association urged ICANN to ignore those objections because international law says that “nation states do not possess exclusive rights to geographic terms.”
In siding with its Governmental Advisory Committee, ICANN’s decision is a win for those South American countries. At least for now.
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