Arrival of ‘dotmobi’ domain raises concerns

[slugraduate]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/709fbdec-4bfe-11db-90d2-0000779e2340.html

 

[netzilla]

Thanks for sharing

 

[labrocca]

Great article and I can easily see the concerns of big companies over this. It truly can be a major problem. I know if my company was forced to spend $50k on domain names to protect my intellectual property I would be pissed.

 

[tm]

It's true. There's no need.

Most designs anyway nowadays can be easily viewed on a modern mobile phone.

 

[Kate]

Well if companies had legitimate rights over certain names they shouldn't have bought them (unless it was more economical than UDRP).
Actually every single company/conglomerate that sponsors a new TLD knows that they can expect a certain percentage of defensive (idle) registrations. Therefore many brands would just feel compelled to register their name under the new TLD (and even pay sunrise fee) just to avoid abuse.
So even if the TLD is not successful (which actually is the case of most of the exts released in the last years) they can still be profitable simply by playing the cybersquatting card ("Do register your own name before someone else does !"). That's the trick :gl:

 

[cursal]

More extensions = more chance for fraud, true.

...but what has been expressed is that if you own a .mobi is you MUST adhere to a strict guideline of code that is viewable via a mobile device. And this is going to be enforced. If you fail to comply with the code you will be warned the first 2 times and the 3rd time it happends you will either be served with a "hefty" fine and/or have your .mobi domain revoked.

I have also read that .mobi will be the default extension set in mobile devices softwares' browsers. Much like IE is default browser when you load up Window's on a machine. So those with a properly developed .mobi domain will get the hit off future moblie devices, not the .com

I have read this info off http://www.theregister.co.uk/ over the past few months. I apologize for not have specfic links.

 

[AdoptableDomains]

I still find .mobi an odd TLD. First, it has 4 letters, making it one more letter to type into that little keypad than com/net/org.

It would seem to me to have been much more effective to use the current domain a company has and do one of two things to serve the correct content.

1. Default to a subdomain of the main domain. We pretty much default now to www.domain.tld. How hard would it be to have mobile devices default to something like mobi.microsoft.com instead of www.microsoft.com? (The real answer is that subdomains are free, and the mobile consortium wouldn't have the extra income from the TLD).

2. Web servers are smart enough now to detect the browser being used, and serve a version compatible with it. Just create a meta code in the mobile browsers to tell a web server what size/type of content to serve.

Even with a .mobi TLD, mobile devices still have very different screen dimensions, resolutions, and scripting capabilities. I don't see how .mobi will solve these discrepancies any more than the problems of PC screens growing from 640 x 480 to over a dozen other standard sizes available now did.

 

[Kate]

...
Even with a .mobi TLD, mobile devices still have very different screen dimensions, resolutions, and scripting capabilities. I don't see how .mobi will solve these discrepancies any more than the problems of PC screens growing from 640 x 480 to over a dozen other standard sizes available now did.

That's one valid point indeed. Truth is, several different configurations and screen layouts are possible for mobiles as well, it's not just the desktop PCs.

 

[Matt]

From BBC Online :

Cyber squatter fears

The so-called land rush has also raised fears over cyber squatters registering lucrative domain names.

Jonathan Robinson, chief operating officer of domain name firm NetNames, said: "The threat to brand owners is as serious as with any other major domain launch.

"Any organisation which has yet to secure its dotmobi trademarks has left itself wide open to abuse from cyber squatters, domain name speculators and competitors."

Mr Edwards said he did expect some cyber squatters to register names during the registration process.

"The attractiveness of dotmobi names to cyber squatters is, I believe, far less than dotcom," he said.

 

[Binfus]

Several things would need to, and probably would, happen for .mobi to be a success...and these can all be summarized as "standardization"....Looking at the list of .mobi backers/investors, its not hard to imagine that there'd be a standard "voice search" feature on all mobile devices (hence making the issue of .mobi being a 4-letter TLD mute), a standard default SE in the form of Google (Big G is one of the investors) and a standard default to .mobi tld for all websites. My hunch is that they probably have already planned this out as well as the AD campaign (unlike for any other TLD) that would accompany .mobi's rollout.

 

[slugraduate]

A follow up to my previous .mobi post.

This article paints a rosier picture.

http://www.stuffmag.co.uk/hotstuffarticle.asp?de_id=2403

 

[slugraduate]

Sorry, Last one. Businessweek.mobi launched.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/09-25-2006/0004438895&EDATE=

 

[dotnom]

mobi is the second official TLD with 4 chars

info did a nice marketing move and has now a significant share
With 100s restrictions and rules may end up like .pro (which i believe they saw this problem and they will try to fix whatever they can in the next renewal of their agreement with ICANN)

I believe for now that .mobi can be respresented allright if you take out the "i" .... mob