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Ask HN: Working on a side project for AWS, can domain have “AWS” included?

by texteller on 6/16/21, 3:47 PM with 8 comments

Ask HN: Currently working on a side project for AWS, the product's domain name has the word "aws" included. Will I get any legal issue from Amazon? Is it advisable to have the word "AWS"? Please advise

  • by BjoernKW on 6/16/21, 10:08 PM

    Their trademark guidelines expressly forbid this ("11. No Combination."): https://aws.amazon.com/trademark-guidelines/

    This had us rename our eBook about developing and running Spring Boot applications on AWS from the original working title "AWS 101" to "Stratospheric" (https://stratospheric.dev/ ), which in my opinion is a much better name, too.

  • by QuinnyPig on 6/16/21, 4:29 PM

    Technically it runs afoul of their rules. Practically, I started https://www.lastweekinaws.com four and a half years ago, with an alternate "cloud" based domain instead; my thinking was "give me grief, I'll migrate and then start talking about your competition."

    I can say that they've never had an issue with my use of it to date, despite my extreme levels of sarcasm.

  • by quickthrower2 on 6/16/21, 8:07 PM

    IANAL but I wouldn’t risk it. Especially as it’s AWS related stuff (rather than your name is Andrew William Smith or something)

    Why not use cloud in place of AWS in the name?

  • by texteller on 6/17/21, 10:12 AM

    Thanks all for your kind response and advise, so I finally decided to change the domain name without their name.