Amazon Wins Auction for .Book Domain

[SteveEisenberg]

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...ok-domain.html

The new generic TLD strings (including .buy which Amazon also won) were introduced by ICANN in an effort to address a maxed out marketplace for .com names. ICANN hopes to foster increased commercial activity in the Internet name marketplace.

Amazon won the auction despite a filing by the Association of American Publishers in 2013 that opposed its bid, and described the possible control of the .book TLD by the retailer, or by any private company, to be counter to the public interest.

[fjtorres]

Existing domains:
http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program...egated-strings

It costs $185K to ask for one.
If there are multiple claims for the domain, it goes to auction.

To date there are .mango, .kiwi, .wtf domains.
Nobody has ante'ed up for .literature or .lit.

Maybe a kickstarter?

[tubemonkey]

Cool

I want .banana

[fjtorres]

I'm covered: there's already .pizza...

[tubemonkey]

I was reading the comments from the article and some of these people are a bit incensed that Amazon was allowed to get the domain. But then, I like it when it affects people like that.

Geez, it's just a name.

[jgaiser]

Yeah.. Good for them. I love auctions, but almost never win a bid because I chicken out in the end. :-)

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I was reading the comments from the article and some of these people are a bit incensed that Amazon was allowed to get the domain. But then, I like it when it affects people like that.

Geez, it's just a name.

It's for a commercial product!
(And it went cheap.)

It's not as if they were buying up .literature or .everything.
Though, like you, I'd love it if they bought it too, since it can be bought so cheap.

[susan_cassidy]

I would have preferred to see .books instead of .book.

[eschwartz]

I approve of the .book domain being managed by the only people who know what they are doing in the book world of today.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I was reading the comments from the article and some of these people are a bit incensed that Amazon was allowed to get the domain. But then, I like it when it affects people like that.

Agreed, although for a different reason.

Amazon's arrogance, I suspect, will eventually be the company's undoing. And this move, in the long run, will help make clearer to the general public how arrogant Amazon is.

Now, it's not that I want Amazon is prove its arrogance by hurting people's livelihood, as when they withhold advance purchase buttons. And I certainly hope they abandon plans for drones piloted by artificial intelligence, as these could kill people (for example, by downing power lines)*. But if Amazon wants to do something that's pretty harmless, like buying the .books domain, thus making visible its will to dominate the book trade, I like it.

___________________________
* Could expensive drones remotely piloted by skilled humans -- one human per drone -- be reasonably safe? Yes, but even Amazon couldn't afford the loses from that delivery model. Could drones piloted by artificial intelligence ever be reasonably safe? Sure, but not in the next decade or two.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Agreed, although for a different reason.

Amazon's arrogance, I suspect, will eventually be the company's undoing. And this move, in the long run, will help make clearer to the general public how arrogant Amazon is.

Now, it's not that I want Amazon is prove its arrogance by hurting people's livelihood, as when they withhold advance purchase buttons. And I certainly hope they abandon plans for drones piloted by artificial intelligence, as these could kill people (for example, by downing power lines)*. But if Amazon wants to do something that's pretty harmless, like buying the .books domain, thus making visible its will to dominate the book trade, I like it.

___________________________
* Could expensive drones remotely piloted by skilled humans -- one human per drone -- be reasonably safe? Yes, but even Amazon couldn't afford the loses from that delivery model. Could drones piloted by artificial intelligence ever be reasonably safe? Sure, but not in the next decade or two.

Ah, what would we ever do without our voice of reason.

[rollei]

More domination by Amazon.

[ApK]

If TLDs are to be had by private owners, I have no problem with Amazon owning .book, as opposed to some other company owning it, but I'm not yet comfortable with the idea of private ownership of TLDs.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by ApK

If TLDs are to be had by private owners, I have no problem with Amazon owning .book, as opposed to some other company owning it, but I'm not yet comfortable with the idea of private ownership of TLDs.

And it is definitely preferable over the AAP and associated groups/companies.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by ApK

If TLDs are to be had by private owners, I have no problem with Amazon owning .book, as opposed to some other company owning it, but I'm not yet comfortable with the idea of private ownership of TLDs.

Once they decided to allow those strings as domains it followed that those with a vested interest in each segment would need to control it. If you look at the domains in question, the owners are really the primary stakeholders. Like IBM. SAMSUNG. etc outfits that can't allow such a domain to exist outside their control. (Amazon tried to get .Amazon for that very reason.)

There really isn't all that much positive value in owning them (which is why they're so cheap) but the (potential) negative value from not owning them is higher. Which is so many whine after the fact.

As I pointed out, nobody has requested .literature so it remains open. But the moment somebody picks it up is when the whining begins.

Nobody cares about .banana but the moment the monkey secures it is the moment chiquita and all the minions start griping.