The Association of American Publishers criticized Amazon’s bid for “closed generic Top-Level Domains” (gTLD), an attempt for “exclusive” control of the new .book domain name.
Click here to read a PDF copy of the letter. Nine different companies have applied to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for access to the undoubtedly useful Internet domain name extension, including Amazon and R.R. Bowker.
AAP general counsel Allan Adler explained in a letter to ICANN:
In short, Amazon makes clear that it seeks exclusive control of the “.book” string solely for its own business purposes, notwithstanding the broad range of other companies, organizations and individuals that have diverse interests in the use of this gTLD or its second-level domains by others or themselves. AAP believes that ICANN approval of such an application would not be in the public interest.
The letter also explained how readers around the world could make use of the open .book domain, urging against granting any company exclusive access to .book domain:
The traditional primary meaning of “book” is a literary composition that is published in a written or printed form consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers. Consequently, it is reasonable to expect that “.book” domains will be sought by authors, publishers, sellers, libraries, literary agents, educators, editors, collectors, illustrators, photographers, printers, binders, archives, clubs, bibliophiles and others – for a myriad of different genres and related matters – in nations throughout the world.
Blogger Mike Cane has compiled some extensive research into the companies vying for the .book domain.
UPDATE: The AAP letter only opposed groups that applied for “closed generic” control of the .Book domain. R.R. Bowker is not part of this group.
