Fiction Books

906 readers

1 users here now

The discussion of fiction books! Please tag spoilers and follow instance rules.

To find more communities on this instance, go to: !411@literature.cafe

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

gabe@literature.cafe

275

Amazon owns .book and .read since 2015 yet still do not allow registrations for these domains. (literature.cafe)

submitted 1 year ago by gabe@literature.cafe to c/fiction@literature.cafe

49 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Barnes and noble wanted one of these domains and sent an appeal to ICANN. They lost the appeal.

Amazon operates these domains within a category of new domain names deemed “closed generics”, which are domain names that companies have successfully bid on or outright paid to get provisioned and own them for their own use and no one else’s. There has been persistent concern raised that this might create unfair monopolies especially for online shopping.

Amazon is the largest holder of closed generic domains on the internet. Nearly all of their domains they own are not able to be purchased and are for Amazon use only. There has been no consequences for this action and it seems unlikely there ever will for the foreseeable future as well.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Arghblarg@lemmy.ca 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Be sure, prior to buying any book or book-related thing online, to check if that 'small, independent'-looking website you're about to click on isn't a front for Amazon. In the same way record megacorps create 'fake indie' labels, Amazon creates fake indie online booksellers, or buys real ones out (for example, Abebooks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AbeBooks).

I feel no guilt whatsoever using libgen, internet archive etc. if I cannot find a book from outside the Amazon monolith.

[–] wrath-sedan@kbin.social 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If you want a web front end for actual independent bookstores https://bookshop.org/ is excellent. You’ll likely pay a small premium over Amazon but you will directly support independent bookstores and publishers.

Also just as a PSA, GoodReads is also Amazon owned and I recommend everyone to check out alternatives like BookWyrm (Activity Pub integrated) and StoryGraph.

[–] gabe@literature.cafe 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There is also Libro.fm!

[–] dharmacurious@literature.cafe 2 points 1 year ago

So glad to see someone else mention them. Sometimes I feel like no one knows about it. I do mainly audiobooks because of time constraints and visual problems, and I always support Firestorm Books in Asheville, NC. Cooperatively owned local bookshop a few hours from me.

load more comments (2 replies)