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Comment by dextralt | Hacker News Reader

'Amazon' is an _English_ translation of a _Greek_ name given to an _Eurasian_ tribe. What claim do _South American_ nations have for it?

I loathe to defend Amazon and ICANN of all the fucking things, but come on now. There are plenty of reasons to shit on these two, but not this nonsense. 'Illegal', lmao.

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The etymology of a word is a silly reason to deny assigning ownership of a TLD. How the word originated is far less important than how it's used. The case Brazil et al are making is that the global common understanding of "Amazon" is more theirs than Bezos'.

In this case though it seems like the most common use for a .amazon domain would be to scam Amazon customers. Tourism could easily go under a .com. That'd be a good reason to assign it to Amazon. It'd be in the interests of people regardless of the company.

Even given your second point, I would argue with the first, given that I think that globally, the company is more thought of when someone sees the word "Amazon" in 2020 than the rainforest.

That’s exactly the situation the South American countries what to fight against.

So it's not AMZN that wants to own the word, it's South American countries that want to do so, even though they have no more right to it than the company.

Of course they do simply by virtue of being sovereign countries rather than some corporation.

They had the word first. That is a compelling argument.

Imagine I start a company today called "America" (I'm in the UK). My business is wildly successful and grows to the point of being a global unicorn that can afford gTLDs. Should ICANN allow me to own .america? A lot of people would argue I shouldn't..

They did not have the word first. Amazon was first used to describe warrior-women from Scythia.

"the amazon": thought of the rainforest/river (only)

"amazon": thought of as either the rainforest/river or the company.

I really dunno what does the world population think of that though (no one knows really).

> the amazon

I think of tall female warriors

If tall female legendary Greek warriors show up and make a claim to the .amazon TLD, we should consider their claim. So far they haven't.

The river was named due to a European associating it with the mythical warriors.

Go on?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_de_Orellana

"The name 'Amazon' is said to arise from a battle Francisco de Orellana fought with a tribe of Tapuyas. The women of the tribe fought alongside the men, as was the custom among the tribe. Orellana derived the name Amazonas from the mythical Amazons of Asia described by Herodotus (see The Histories [4.110-116]) and Diodorus in Greek legends"

I was (vaguely) aware of that but what difference does it make here?

The point is that the word "amazon" (which is what is being bought as a gTLD) was not first used in South America, so they have no claim to it beyond "we use it too". Which isn't a good claim, otherwise they should've/would've been able to prevent Jeff Bezos from calling the company Amazon in the first place.

No, they used it first and Bezos named his company after the river. He could have chosen another name instead of using one that was already taken. He's the one that caused a name collision so he's the one that should suffer from it.

Who is "they"? It seems like it was used first by a conquistador. Who wasn't Greek.

That's "The amazons", in plural.

In English, "the Amazon" could also be a valid phrase apart from the river. For instance, you might have a course called "The Amazon in Ancient Greek and Modern Culture".

No, it would still be "The Amazons from Ancient Greece" or "The Greek Amazons" or something. "Amazon" singular in that context is only used as an adjective, such as "the Amazon Queen".

Quick edit: Ah wait, I think I see what you're doing with that phrase. It's shorthand for "The Amazon culture" or "Amazon depictions" or something, but it still comes off as strange-sounding to me.

Using "the X" to generalize about a group of people is likely to trigger offense if you're talking about a group of people who exist or is identified with today. It's not just the essence of stereotyping, but also kind of affected and pompous.

So, sure, it sounds "strange", but it's not new, and people use it when they want to make a generalization with a tone of authority. Probably one might expect to get away with it when talking about an abstract concept or archetype that exists independently of actual people.

Well it could refer to a specific one.

That's not even the important point. Ownership of a domain name doesn't have to do with who is more of the owner of the name, nor whether the name is "etymologically pure", or whose use of the name is more popular. The entire right to own a domain (or TLD) is based solely upon ICANN's Uniform Dispute Resolution Process, and any established case law which exists in your particular jurisdiction. So this thing that the majority of the world's communication and commerce is dependent upon is adjudicated by a private entity in a single country that makes its own rules.

Is it wrong to think of the mythical warriors?

Also, maybe someone should make a modest proposal to Bezos to rename the company "Orellana".

I don't understand this argument at all. Do none of the Americas have any right to have trademarks on words, since none of the languages spoken here are native to the Americas?

Can we not trademark English words, since we aren't English?

The point is "Amazon" is just a word used by South Americans to name things in their culture, in the same way that Bezos names his company "Amazon".

The fact that they sold the TLD to the the company is a little sketchy, but the idea that South America has an inherent trademark on anything "Amazon" is ridiculous.

So it should be a common name, like "water" or "air" and that domain should not be on private hands. But if I had to choose between a beautiful river and its surrounding rainforest and a company which forces some of its contractors to pee in bottles I know who I will choose.

> common name, like "water" or "air" and that domain should not be on private hands

This seems like an entirely separate argument.

Domains like .earth and .country are privately owned, nobody cares. http://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt

Well given the fact that Guyana is an English speaking country and a member of ACTO, it has as much right as US has over a hypothetical New York or California domain. Or it does not count because it is "South-American" and not proper English to you?

I think the choice of New York/California really muddies up this comparison. Maybe a Guyanese company named Rocky Mountain getting ".rockymountain" would be more apt. Otherwise you start to bring in comparison to geographic boundaries over many countries vs political boundaries which have historically been reserved in DNS as well as protection of existing domains when registering a new one which (I don't believe) is the case here as well as government vs other domains and possibly more "as well"s I'm not thinking of.

Why does it muddies it up?

For the reasons I listed in my comment.

Baja California is in what country?

Also, most of the outrage I'm aware of over the commercial use of California by non-Americans is because some people name things "California" and then don't sell them in the US.

https://www.adventure-journal.com/2019/08/its-absurd-the-new...

English is the de facto lingua franca on the internet. English is also the official language of both Guyana and the Falklands. I think that would give these nations a case for a claim.

Guyana yes, Malvinas not. First, they are not a nation, they are a (disputed) British overseas territory (by own choice) and second, they are nowhere close to the Amazon.

The company is named after the river, not the Eurasian tribe.

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