.Amazon Gives E-Commerce Giant Its Own Internet Domain
Summary
After waiting in vain for years for the US online retail colossus and an alliance of South American countries to resolve their battle over the right to web addresses ending with ".amazon," the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) this month sided with the Seattle-based company. "Due to its inseparable semantic relation to the Amazon forest, that domain should not be, in any way, the monopoly of a company," the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs argued on its website. " ICANN said it balanced concerns of all involved and stalled the companys application for the domain in hopes the Internet firm and member states of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization would work out a solution. "ACTO and the Amazon corporation have been unable to come to a mutually acceptable solution or agree on an extension of time for continued discussions," ICANN said. The Brazilian Foreign Ministry said it feared the ICANN decision did not sufficiently take into account the interests of the South American governments involved and undermined the rights of sovereign states.