RUMBLE OVER .AMAZON JUNGLE

One of the biggest domain disputes ever is taking place between online retailer giants Amazon.com inc and the South American government over the legal rights to the domain name .amazon. The Brazilian and Peruvian governments, whose combined rainforest equates to 73% of the world’s forests, have stated it “would prevent the use of this domain for purposes of public interest relating to the protection, promotion and awareness, raising on issues related to the Amazon biome”. Online retailers Amazon.com Inc. however, have already bid $185,000 for the domain name. ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has issued an early warning to Amazon.com inc. asking their reasoning behind registering the domain. Amazon.com inc is yet to respond. The situation really shows how valuable domains are. Historically, domain names have always referred to a generic description such as .net or a geographical region such as .co.uk. All the new domain names have opened this up to be a lot more commercial. Who do you think should be given ownership of the domain?

.TRAVEL DOMAINS - Pro's and Con's

On the surface, .travel domains can appear too long, unwieldy and potentially unnessesary. Maybe for travel companies such as “Thomas Cook”, a .travel domain will actually look good and achieve its purpose (thomascook.travel). Not only does it inform the customer that this is a bona fide travel company, but it also doesn’t seem too awkward as a long domain name. However there are a lot of company names such as “Dash” (dash.travel), which can it look less like a domain and more like a funky name (DashDot Travel).

We have been brought up on the internet to trust and aspire towards short domains such as .com. Although 60% of people couldn’t tell you what com stands for (commercial), the likelihood is that they will hold a .com site in more esteem than any other. Long domains such as .travel almost seem to be in conflict with our deep-rooted preferences. This, coupled with the badly managed release of .travel domains has lead to a situation where 12 years after their release, there are still millions of .travel domains yet to be registered.