Govt. of Brazil, ACTO unhappy with ICANN over Amazon gTLDs

The Amazon Co-operation Treaty Organization (ACTO) and the Government of Brazil have blasted internet authority ICANN over the latter’s decision to pass biased and untrue statements over transferring the .AMAZON gTLD to cloud giant Amazon. The dissatisfaction has stemmed from ICANN’s decision to go ahead and buy the .AMAZON domain name without the approval of ACTO or the Brazilian government.

ACTO say that Amazon have been trying to get their hands on the .AMAZON gTLD along with its transliterations in Chinese and Japanese scripts, since 2012. They say that the cloud and retail giant’s applications to acquire the same were rejected by GAC (Governmental Advisory Committee) in July 2013, stating that ‘ACTO countries believe that the “Amazon” is a geographic string that belongs to them (ACTO)’. 

Following these events, ACTO say that Amazon filed an IRP (Independent Review Process) with ICANN, which it won last year. They claim that committee members of the IRP find GAC’s advice built on shaky and opaque grounds and believe that GAC should not have a blanket ‘veto’ for new gTLD applications. 

Since then, ACTO say that ICANN have been trying to figure out a way to comply with the IRP and at the same time appease with GAC and ACTO countries like Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela etc.

To cool things off, ACTO say that Amazon have offered them a suite of cultural protections, an offer to support future application for .AMAZONIA and USD 5 million worth of products and services, including free Kindle devices. They further added that ICANN have also been trying to find a common ground so that both ACTO and Amazon come to terms.

As per ACTO, the situation is on standby and the peace talks with Amazon are called off with a ‘Request for Reconsideration’ given to overturn ICANN’s resolution. It will be interesting to see how the events unfold for Amazon, following the purchase of Swedish domain name Amazon.se.