Amazon emerges triumphant in ICANN appeal

Online retailer Amazon has emerged triumphant after appealing against a decision by ICANN to deny applications for the .amazon generic top-level domain (gTLD).

In May 2014, TBO reported that ICANN had killed off the gTLD and its Chinese and Japanese equivalents, ten months after its government committee urged that the applications should be rejected.

The Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) had asked the New gTLD Program Committee to reject the domains based on objections from Brazil and Peru, which share the Amazon region.

Amazon then requested reconsideration but this was rejected in August 2014, so Amazon notified ICANN of its intention to seek independent review.

Both parties participated in a “cooperative engagement process” in an attempt to resolve the issues, but no resolution was reached.

In March last year, Amazon filed a notice of independent review with the International Centre for Dispute Resolution.

The panel handed down its decision on July 10.

It recommended that ICANN’s board “promptly re-evaluate Amazon’s applications in light of the panel’s declaration”.

“In its re-evaluation of the applications, the board should make an objective and independent judgment regarding whether there are, in fact, well-founded, merits-based public policy reasons for denying Amazon’s applications,” said the panel.

According to the panel, Amazon established that ICANN had acted in a manner inconsistent with its bylaws.

“Further, the GAC, as a constituent body of ICANN, failed to allow the applicant to submit any information to the GAC and thus deprived the applicant of the minimal degree of procedural fairness before issuance of its advice, as required by the bylaws.”