The end of September saw the start of open registration for .mobi, mobile phone-specific website addresses. The promise of the .mobi domain name is to deliver better, more streamlined Internet content to mobile devices through content optimisation.

The mobile has become indispensable for millions of people, but with only one in 10 mobile users using their phones to browse the Internet, do we really need a domain name specifically for that purpose?

The lack of interest in searching the web with a mobile device may be down to the lack of suitable content available - something that may change with the introduction of .mobi. However, it may also illustrate that there is no real need for a new domain name dedicated to mobile content. Furthermore, it may actually create more problems than it solves.

Having gone through an initial sunrise registration period, the .mobi top level domain name is now available to everyone on a first-come, first-served basis.

The sunrise period, where trademark holders could register their tradenmarks as a.mobi domain name, was been followed by a two-week ‘Landrush’ period when available .mobi domain names will be able to be registered at special prices.

In the first two days of the Landrush period .mobi registered more than 88,000 new domains, a take up which was hailed by the .mobi registry as a wild success. However, there are a number of critics who point to the recent launch of .eu which saw more than 700,000 registrations in four hours and the new domain name has also sparked some further concerns.

While a consortium of related businesses including Nokia, Microsoft and Vodafone is promoting .mobi, critics are railing against the proliferation of new domains, which they claim are costly and a cause of fraud.

As with the introduction of the .eu domain name, the new top level domain name is indeed likely to lead to disputes as people realise that their trademarks have been registered by third parties. With the proliferation of domain name suffixes, companies increasingly need to consider defensive registrations. This prevents others from using their name and brand online - a practice known as cybersquatting.

As Sarah Deutsch, associate general counsel for Verizon explained in a recent article, “What we would not want to happen is for this name to be an infringer’s paradise. A lot of the new domain names just compound the problem of trademark infringement and fraud.”

Registrars are also lukewarm to the idea of another domain name launch. Marcus Eggensperger, legal director at Lycos Europe, said: “As a registrar, we are lucky because we have new markets but, to be honest, for trademark owners it could be a problem to have to make defensive registrations.”

Furthermore, it has been suggested that complex process of a sunrise and landrush period has put many companies off registration, which in turn has led to further issues. Indeed, some companies may end up paying over the odds for their desired .mobi domain names because they have been bought by speculators.

.mobi is keen to quash concerns however, by stating that the price of a .mobi address had been made more expensive than .eu or .com to deter cybersquatters from making speculative registrations.

Whatever the concerns, companies and individuals must take the same precautions when registering a .mobi domain as with any other domain name. This can be as simple as checking whether your chosen name has already been registered, finding a registrar that provides the range of services you need - and ensuring that the registration is kept up to date.

This entry was posted in October, 2006.
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