Guess Who Dominates Upcoming "Dot Book" Domain Auction?

Once upon a time, the Internet was a place where paywalls did not exist, where activity tracking profoundly violated individual rights and online privacy, and where obtaining domain names required a brief registration and maybe a couple of bucks.

That "Internet Spring," with its enticing promise, is long gone. The Internet now increasingly functions as a "monetization" arena, with profit often characterized as the greatest possible good human activity can produce. A prime example of this degradation of the Internet is ICANN's (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) current auction of the "dot book" (.book) domain name.

According to a piece in mediabistro.com, the market for .book is sizzling. One contender for the domain is Amazon, which is bidding to own the entire domain. No sharing, which is in keeping with the Seattle firm's M.O. Another player is Google, which went to some lengths to obscure its interest in the auction. A surprise entry is Bowker, the firm that provides ISBN numbers and other data for the book biz.

For better or worse, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) has publicly objected to Amazon's Darth Vader-style grasp for dominance. Apparently, AAP wasn't quite as concerned with the folks from Mountain Valley, California. The organization didn't seem to mind Bowker's desire to seize the domain day, either. Keep in mind publishers work closely with Bowker. The Big Five and the other members of publishing's solar system may not be so strongly motivated to challenge the provider of the industry's data lifeblood.

Amazon, for those of you keeping score at home, prefers to use its own data management system. They don't want Bowker, or anyone else, for that matter, to intrude on its data juggernaut. As in old movies in which secret police play a prominent role, Amazon only needs your information. Content may yearn to be free, but data cries out for control.

PS. A March 24, 2013 article in the Financial Times follows up on this topic and provides a brief summary of the stakes for trademark holders in the domain auction scenario.