back to article Amazon tried to entice Latin American officials with $5m in Kindles, AWS credits for .amazon

Amazon offered the governments of Brazil and Peru millions of dollars' worth of Kindles and AWS hosting if they would stop blocking its effort to get hold of the .amazon top-level domain. The governments turned the offer down. This is the latest twist in the long-running saga between one of the world's most powerful companies …

  1. Danny 14

    5M of free gear? thats not even a decent bribe never mind an incentive to a government.

    1. MiguelC Silver badge

      Moreover, the author makes it sound as the Brazilian government will eventually make a deal, it's just that their price that hasn't been met. Would it be inconceivable to consider it a matter of principle not to relinquished their perceived right to the use of the river's name?

    2. noodle heimer

      A bunch of kindles?

      unless the kindle has gotten very good at Portuguese, and unless Amazon has gotten very good at furnishing ebooks in Portuguese, that's a truly insulting offer.

      The Amazon Brazil ebook toplist makes me think "insulting." ebook selection even in Spanish is weak, and that's despite the large numbers of Spanish readers in Amazon's home market.

      https://www.amazon.com.br/gp/bestsellers/digital-text/5308307011?pd_rd_wg=kOSTu&pd_rd_r=3fe30bbc-5715-497c-b6d8-e39a3c5de7de&pd_rd_w=JwADG&ref_=pd_gw_ri&pf_rd_r=C2HAWEDXWC2WFWVJB4TE&pf_rd_p=83880a48-09ff-5ace-bc09-6471146ac537

      If Amazon wants the domain, they needn't sweeten the pot - they need a much bigger pot.

      A no-strings goodwill offer to help rebuild the museum which recently burned might be a good start.

    3. ryokeken

      5mill in the land of lavajato

      Their latest bribe scandal j is measured in several BILLIONS,presidents and countries and Amazon wants ti but the unicorn (that's what's it for them at this point) for FIVE MILLONS in shitty tablets and cloud space? who would agree with that precedent? The lavajato scandal is as relevant if not more to this article to illustrate how much more insulting the offer really is.

  2. Erik4872

    Interesting...

    Manhattan was purchased from the original inhabitants for $24 in trinkets. I guess Amazon figured they could do something similar? :-)

    1. Richard 120

      Re: Interesting...

      Apples and Pears

      The S. American govts. are neither owners or occupiers of the .amazon TLD

  3. Richard 120

    Considering Amazon shouldn't have to pay anything to Brazil (they don't own it), or any Gov't. for the TLD I think $5m is a pretty sweet deal.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Brazil will cave eventually. Either Amazon will make them an offer they actually find reasonable, or more likely, at some point an Amazon-sympathiser will be installed in the right place who'll suddenly agree with everything they want.

    1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

      Well, Brazil has a an election on the weekend and it's likely the chap who will win is the one slightly to the right of Trump (as opposed to the one in jail) so perhaps a change of mind might be in the offing?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Being even more nationalist than Trump means it's even less likely you want to be seen caving in to foreign interests. "Seen" is the key word here. If Amazon-the-corp manages to find a discrete way to pay the bribe, and direct it to a few select individuals rather than a group, it's indeed likely to work.

      2. Spazturtle Silver badge

        Slightly to the right of Trump? Bit of an understatement, he makes Trump look positively left wing by comparison. Although this whole left - right thing is far too 1 dimensional to accurately describe anyone.

  5. SVV

    Top level domains should not be allowed to be owned by companies

    Otherwise the name grabbing rush will just get ludicrous. Do we have to go through the whole Iceland saga again where volcanic island nations get into wrangles with discount frozen food supermarkets, but repeated for every geographic area on the planet?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Top level domains should not be allowed to be owned by companies

      Yes, we do.

      I note that nobody has mentioned that the word amazon is almost certainly old Persian, and that it was westerners who named the Amazon after them.

    2. Paul Kinsler

      Re: Top level domains should not be allowed to be owned by companies

      One solution could be to give the river itself legal rights (like the Whanganui, in NZ), and let it fight its own battles :-)

  6. Efer Brick

    One way to get rid of tat-tectonics landfill gear

  7. Efer Brick

    One way to get rid of tat-electonic landfill gear

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      One way to get rid of tat-platonic landfill gear

  8. Carpet Deal 'em

    Have they tried

    A compromise where Brazil operates the TLD and Amazon gets priority on domain names? It seems like a rather natural solution.

  9. FuzzyWuzzys

    Surely Bezos and co, when they renamed the company from whatever it was to Amazon and knew they were an online retailer would want ( .amazon ) at some point, knew the name of the company might come into conflict with that particualr geographic area, which let's face it, is rather well known after a certain Gordon Sumner highlighted it's plight to us all many years before the "online Mark's 'n' Sparks" used it.

    Sadly I suspect Brazil is simply hanging on for a bloody good, long term deal that sees Amazon ( the company ) laying out cash that'll go straight in the pockets of....sorry, see cash injected into the failing infrastruture and helping the poor of Brazil.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Sadly I suspect Brazil is simply hanging on for a bloody good, long term deal that sees Amazon ( the company ) laying out cash that'll go straight in the pockets of....sorry, see cash injected into the failing infrastruture and helping the poor of Brazil.

      I assume they must be in need of money after switching back to Microsoft a while back, but I think that negotiation must have given them an approach on how to maximise their gain from Bezos. They know that he'll do practically anything to get his way.

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      FuzzyWuzzys,

      When Amazon were created there were no .word TLDs. And as far as I remember, it wasn't even an idea that ICANN (or anyone) had discussed. So Amazon were perfectly happy with amazon.com.

      But having a dot.word for your company makes quite a lot of sense when you've got so many sub-domains to play with. Things like film.amazon, cloud.amazon, music.amazon etc. So I can see why they went for it. Particularly as nobody objected at first.

      1. katrinab Silver badge
        WTF?

        What's wrong with film.amazon.com etc?

        1. jake Silver badge

          What's wrong?

          Because that solution is too logical ... and it doesn't feed fragile egos.

        2. Ralph B

          They seem to have gone with "primevideo.com", so they can't be that attached to the "amazon" brand name.

  10. jake Silver badge

    I wonder what Brazil's reaction would be if ...

    ... Libya made a claim for the .amazon TLD? Seems to me that they have had a much longer association with the word than Brazil has.

  11. Qarumba

    It's not a country!

    Has no-one registered that amazon is not a country and it's actually the name of a group of mythological female Greek warriors! So maybe the Greeks should be contesting it or maybe a bunch of feminists should get together and contest it or maybe ICANN should grow a pair and give it to Amazon.

    1. Timmy B

      Re: It's not a country!

      "Has no-one registered that amazon is not a country and it's actually the name of a group of mythological female Greek warriors! "

      Actually they were Turkish according to the writings.

  12. Teiwaz

    Don't think Amazon.com really want it....

    Set up and promote Amazonian culture and heritage to the tune of $1m over four years.

    Block registration of a long list of names under the .amazon extension given to it by the Brazilian and Peruvian governments.

    Offer $5m in "credits" for Amazon goods and services – basically free Kindle e-readers and free AWS hosting services

    That's not an offer that's an insult.

    Here, have a few pennies as $1m is nothing to the international corp after all, and spread out of four years is even more measly. Ooh, threw in a few of their cheap tat and trinkets? May as well have offered them store credit that expires within a month or two.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Don't think Amazon.com really want it....

      The domain only originally cost them $150,000-odd. So they're already offering Brazil nearly 50 times what they paid to get it - it's not an unreasonable amount. It's not like it's worth much to the company - it's not going to increase their business value by anything at all, it's just a slightly easier way of operating a large online portfolio of businesses.

      Particularly as they're not going to be offering the domain to general sale - it's going to be for their corporate set-up. And they'll perma-block any subdomain that Brazil objects to.

      So the question is if Brazil have got any real objection, for example any idea to use the domain for anything practical. Or if they're just blocking Amazon because they can.

  13. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
    Happy

    Say whut?

    It is with a heavy heart that I must take serious issue with a Register writer. What kind of journalistic standards do you call this Kieren?

    With ICANN's independence and credibility at stake, the time for serious negotiations has begun.

    Are you seriously trying to tell us that ICANN has any credibility left to lose?

    When can we expect your piece on the successes of FIFA's Ethics Committee...

  14. Timmy B

    I say that Amazon (the tat and cloud slingers) are far less important than The Amazon (that makes 1/4 of our air) and that the domain should be donated to someone like the rainforest trust or the WWF for the promotion of the rainforest as a vital biome.

    1. Mark Honman

      Yep, it's not just a river - it's a common name for the whole Amazon basin region, probably close to half the land area of South America.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The Amazon (that makes 1/4 of our air)

      I see you're a stranger to maths and chemistry (and possibly quite a lot of other scientific disciplines). You aren't a member of parliament, by any chance?

      1. Timmy B

        The 1/4 of the air is rainforests as a whole. Estimations for that are between 20 and 30%. It was hyperbole as with the tat-slinging. I don't suppose anyone actually thinks Amazon slings tat in any way. I never, at any time, made it look like my post was meant to be a serious scientific paper did I?

  15. hellwig

    three judges decided that the DNS overseer had broken its own bylaws

    *GASP* *SHOCK* *DESPAIR* *DISBELIEF* Say it ain't so.

  16. hellwig

    The obvious solution

    ... is to give Brazil an Amazon Headquarters. Duh!

  17. Nifty Silver badge

    https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/03/07/haggling/

    I tell them the old joke about the man who asks a girl if she will sleep with him for a million dollars. Of course, she says yes. He then offers her two dollars and she slaps his face, saying, ‘What do you think I am?’ He answers, ‘I know what you are. We are just haggling over the price.’

  18. Kimo

    https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/amazon.png

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