Fight for .amazon Internet domain

By Francisco Espinosa Bellido

In 2012 Amazon applied for the domain .amazon. to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), non-profit organization responsible for the introduction of new generic top-level domains (TLDs).

The governments of Brazil and Peru opposed to the application as they wanted to use the domain .amazon for "the protection, promotion and awareness raising on issues related to the Amazon biome". The majority of the Amazon rainforest, which represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests, is contained specially within Brazil and Peru.

Icann ruled in favor of both countries, denying the domain for use of the US company. But Amazon still fights for the domain: in May the company wrote a letter to the Corporation stating that Brazil and Peru don’t have the rights of the term Amazon, and even offered to help both governments into finding a new "amazonian" domain.

"We engaged in good faith negotiations, including offering to help these governments reserve other domain names, such as ‘.amazonas,’ or to provide special access to certain geographic and cultural terms within the .amazon space, but our proposals were flatly rejected on multiple occasions", said Amazon Vice President of Global Public Policy, Paul Misener, to Blooomberg.