The Battle for the Critical Internet Resources: South America vs. Amazon

Abstract

This paper is an early attempt to analyze the controversy about the allocation of critical Internet resources, generated by ICANN’s new gTLD program. This paper presents the preliminary findings of the AMAZON case, a contested prime example in ICANN’s effort to extend the Internet’s name space. The analysis covers the argumentations of the major stakeholders involved, Amazon, Inc. on one side, and the South American governments on the other, but also examines ICANN’s role as administrator of the TLD. However, at the core of this paper there is a dichotomy to analyze: 1) the right of a private entity to assert a brand that it has used for the last 19 years as a new gTLD, and 2) the public interest of the Latin American people to preserve a name that reinforces the preservation of the Amazon region, and which has been used for the last 500 years.