Amazon Technologies Archives

The Kindle Ice? Amazon acquires KindleIce.com domain name and more

On the same day Amazon announced the Kindle Fire on September 28, Jeffrey Casserino, a resident of Syracuse, New York, got busy registering domain names having to do with the Kindle.

Despite Amazon buying up over 500 Kindle Fire and Amazon Silk domains such as 3gKindleFire.com and SilkSmartphones.com on September 28 as well, the company wasn’t fast enough to get certain names like AmazonKindleFiretablets.com, UsedFires.com, and KindleIce.com.

That’s because Jeffrey Casserino registered the names first.

Now, it appears Amazon has taken ownership of several domains first registered by Jeffrey Casserino, including: amazonkindlefires.com, amazonkindlefiretablets.com, amazonkindleice.com, amznfire.com, kindleice.com, kindlesfire.com, and usedfires.com.

While it’s unknown whether Amazon’s lawyers threatened legal action or if Amazon offered cash for the names, according to WHOIS History, each name was transferred from Jeffrey Casserino to Amazon Technologies, Inc. on November 4.

Two of the more interesting domains Amazon acquired in the group were AmazonKindleIce.com and KindleIce.com, which may be nothing more than defensive names the company is adding to its portfolio of over 20,000 domains.

Or maybe, the Kindle Ice will be the name of a future version of the Kindle tablet?

Here’s a look at the WHOIS record for KindleIce.com.

Registrant:
   Amazon Technologies, Inc.
   P.O. Box 8102
   Reno, Nevada 89507
   United States

   Domain Name: KINDLEICE.COM
      Created on: 28-Sep-11
      Expires on: 28-Sep-12
      Last Updated on: 04-Nov-11

   Administrative Contact:
      Hostmaster, Amazon
      Amazon Technologies, Inc.
      P.O. Box 8102
      Reno, Nevada 89507
      United States

   Technical Contact:
      Hostmaster, Amazon
      Amazon Technologies, Inc.
      P.O. Box 8102
      Reno, Nevada 89507
      United States

I’ve reached out to Jeffrey Casserino for comment and will update this post if I hear back.

Discussion: Geeky Gadgets, DeviceMAG, Tom’s Guide and AndroidOS.in

There’s no question that Amazon owns a lot of domain names. This past week the company purchased several hundred new names, including a group of more than 500 names, after announcing the Kindle Fire and Amazon Silk.

While large quantity purchases are usually part of a company’s intellectual property strategy in order to protect their brand, it’s easier to speculate on the individual purchases such as KindleVine.com, which Amazon acquired this week from its owner in Canada.

With the announcement of the Kindle Fire, one can only imagine the slew of products, services and peripherals Amazon will soon offer, possibly including: Kindle Vine.

Amazon already runs a program called “Amazon Vine” that invites the most trusted reviewers on Amazon to post opinions about new and pre-release items to help customers make informed purchase decisions.

Could an entirely separate invitation-only program run by Amazon be set up for Kindles?

The domain name exchanged hands at the end of September, and now the registrant shows Amazon as the owner. Previously, KindleVine.com was a web site that served up eBay listings involving Amazon’s Kindle device.

Here’s a look at the Whois record.

Registrant:
   Amazon Technologies, Inc.
   P.O. Box 8102
   Reno, Nevada 89507
   United States

   Domain Name: KINDLEVINE.COM
      Created on: 25-Apr-08
      Expires on: 25-Apr-12
      Last Updated on: 29-Sep-11

   Administrative Contact:
      Hostmaster, Amazon
      Amazon Technologies, Inc.
      P.O. Box 8102
      Reno, Nevada 89507
      United States

   Domain servers in listed order:
      NS-1.AMAZON.COM
      NS-2.AMAZON.COM
      NS-3.AMAZON.COM