Fiction Books @literature.cafe gabe [he/him] @literature.cafe 1 yr. ago

Amazon owns .book and .read since 2015 yet still do not allow registrations for these domains.

Barnes and noble wanted one of these domains and sent an appeal to ICANN. They lost the appeal.

Amazon operates these domains within a category of new domain names deemed “closed generics”, which are domain names that companies have successfully bid on or outright paid to get provisioned and own them for their own use and no one else’s. There has been persistent concern raised that this might create unfair monopolies especially for online shopping.

Amazon is the largest holder of closed generic domains on the internet. Nearly all of their domains they own are not able to be purchased and are for Amazon use only. There has been no consequences for this action and it seems unlikely there ever will for the foreseeable future as well.

49 comments

I was so heartbroken when I realized lemmy.read cant be bought. Literature.cafe is cute and all but lemmy read sounds like let me read ;(
- I prefer literature.cafe tbh. Still stupid though
  
  I agree, it’s an adorable name as well 🥰
- they own the thing at the right so you can't have even wkdnenwooxofkenjd.read? Didn't know you can own that
  
  It's a pretty new thing. In recent years many new TLDs have been added.
  
  See here for a full list currently supported on the open web: https://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt
  
  Companies are now allowed to add TLDs to this, if they can provide a reason and the infrastructure needed to make them usable.
  
  Amazon owning those TLDs and not allowing registration for it is not okay in my opinion. The words "book" and "read" are not exclusively used by Amazon.
  
  Here is some insight into the process: https://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/draft-rfp-clean-12nov10-en.pdf
  
  Oh yeah. You can own anything.
Nobody should be able to own an entire TLD IMO, except for .gov being restricted to the government.
- Even that is just ridiculous when it's only the US government.
  
  The French government owns gouv.fr and all their stuff is a subdomain of it. I still don't understand why the US government doesn't just do the same, register gov.us and leave everyone alone with their .gov
- I think it would be reasonable to allow other countries .gov and or perhaps switch it to domain.country.gov
- There are restrictions of various types on .edu, .mil, etc. And other countries put restrictions on their TLD’s for business & tax purposes as well. Try to register a domain with something like a .au TLD and you’ll find you need to be a citizen/resident of Australia or have an actual business presence in the country.
  
  Those are good examples too that I overlooked.
How is this not domain squatting?
- It's only illegal for the poors.
- Because $$$$$
What a bunch of cocks.
- Wait a second, cocks provide value to society and many people like them. Don’t denigrate them by comparing them to Amazon
  
  What a bunch of dicks.
More like ICAN'T
- Oh god this was good 🤣
  
  For those unaware of ICANN
- ICAN'TEVEN
  
  Not on my daughter's birthday!
This should be damning for ICANN. Amazon, any other corporation, or any other person shouldn't be allowed such a monopoly, but this is all dictated by money.
- ridiculous that generic TLDs weren’t offered under similar terms as standards written that include patented technologies: that they must be offered under fair and reasonable non-discriminatory terms
Be sure, prior to buying any book or book-related thing online, to check if that 'small, independent'-looking website you're about to click on isn't a front for Amazon. In the same way record megacorps create 'fake indie' labels, Amazon creates fake indie online booksellers, or buys real ones out (for example, Abebooks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AbeBooks).

I feel no guilt whatsoever using libgen, internet archive etc. if I cannot find a book from outside the Amazon monolith.
- If you want a web front end for actual independent bookstores https://bookshop.org/ is excellent. You’ll likely pay a small premium over Amazon but you will directly support independent bookstores and publishers.
  
  Also just as a PSA, GoodReads is also Amazon owned and I recommend everyone to check out alternatives like BookWyrm (Activity Pub integrated) and StoryGraph.
  
  There is also Libro.fm!
- Permanently Deleted
  
  Indeed!
Sounds like a time to seriously start supporting OpenNIC or something similar.
No one should able to hoarde domains. That's fucked.
ICANN is so full of shit.
I would kill for one of their .fire domains
TLDs are a scam.
So why not just buy .books?
- Becoming a domain registry is no easy task lol
  
  It’s not a registry if nobody can register
  
  Edit: ah the nuances of the English language. My bad, a registry and a registrar are two different things
@gabe grrrr..
@gabe

Well that kinda is the point when you are the biggest book seller in the world
@gabe@literature.cafe what if DNS providers disagreed?
- Unsure, it would be very interesting to see if they decided to though. There was major concern raised from Barnes and Noble before Amazon swiped the domains from them.
  
  @gabe@literature.cafe does amazon have any actual legal "ownership" over these TLDs? would there be repercussions for a DNS provider not acknowledging their "ownership"?

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