ICANN Board of Directors instructed corporation's President Goran Marby to personally lead talks over the application for the new generic top-level domain (gTLD) .AMAZON, reports Domain Incite. The corporation of the same time submitted the application several years ago; however, it met with strong opposition from representatives of South American states in the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). In particular, these were delegates from Brazil and Peru who expressed their opposition to domain’s delegation.
As a result, GAC took the side of South American delegates and opposed the delegation of the domain. Amazon filed a complaint and its request for the Independent Review Process was granted. During the procedure it was established that the application was rejected without sufficient grounds. Neither “Amazon” river, nor its basin “Amazonia” are administrative territorial entities, which would have been a reason to reject the application for this domain by corresponding authorities. In Brazil, however, there is a state called “Amazonas”. It’s spelt “Amazonas” though, therefore the word “Amazon” may well be used as the gTLD name without the approval of any country’s authorities.
Amazon, for its part, is doing everything to reach compromise. It has promised to protect names associated with the Amazon river basin (such as, rainforest.amazon) from possible unfair use. The company is also ready to provide support for the .AMAZONAS domain if the Brazilian state decides to apply for it. Finally, we remind that Amazon is willing to use it as dot-brand without any third-party registrations. However, all of this does not affect the viewpoint of GAC delegates from South America, who are still against .AMAZON’s delegation. Participation of ICANN President personally in the negotiation process is probably the last chance to reconcile the parties and come to a compromise.
