Sedo Auction Causes Confusion
The owner of Europe.mobi would like everyone to know that the domain name, currently on auction at Sedo, is not for sale. As best as anyone can tell, the owner, who is the proprietor of M.biz and the company New Media Frontiers, does not have a Sedo account, and the previous owner may not have removed it from his Sedo account, where it was accidentally sent to auction.
More details are available from the owner of Europe.mobi at the Mobility.mobi forum, where the owner has posted a warning not to bid on the auction.
DUBLIN, Ireland and WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 /PRNewswire/ — dotMobi, the company behind the .mobi Internet domain designed to help consumers find content that works on mobile phones, today announced that more than one million .mobi domains have been registered since its launch two years ago.
From October 2006, dotMobi has seen continued growth in the amount of registrants as companies pursue the increased visibility and targeted marketing the mobile Web offers. Mobile content consumption is steadily growing while the lack of consistency and navigation issues that previously hampered mass consumer adoption are lessening.
In June 2008, dotMobi issued joint research with AKQA, a global creative agency. dotMobi found that 90 percent of respondents were interested in learning about the mobile Web. Brands and companies far and wide have turned to dotMobi for information on building and marketing mobile Web sites for consumers looking to access content while on the go.
Sites such as Nokia.mobi, Mercedes-Benz.mobi, Zagat.mobi and Bank of America’s BofA.mobi have been successfully promoted as custom, intuitive experiences for their users. These brands represent a small handful of the thousands of businesses who are embracing the mobile Web with sites across dozens of categories, including travel, automotive, consumer packaged goods, publishing and financial services.
The entertainment industry is also moving onto the mobile Web. Country music star Tim McGraw engages his audience via http://McGraw2go.mobi, where fans can download music samples, watch videos and keep tabs on the latest tour while followers of the Wu-Tang Clan can get the latest information about the group at http://wumusicgroup.mobi. Recent hit film Eagle Eye featured a special promotional “tie-in” site with US electronics retail giant Circuit City at http://ee.mydas.mobi as does the upcoming blockbuster James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, with Sony Australia at http://quantumcode.mobi.
Along with the .mobi domain, dotMobi as a company has continued to grow. To aid the expansion of the mobile Web, the company has created a wealth of free tools for developers, available at the mobiForge.com mobile web developer forum, which now boasts more than 20,000 members. Free resources such as the ready.mobi report and award-winning DeviceAtlas device database show business owners what they need to do to make their site successful with their customers on virtually every Web-enabled cell phone on the planet.
“dotMobi has established relevance, order – and now success – in what two years ago was a muddled, confusing mobile Web world,” said Trey Harvin, CEO of dotMobi. “With the mobile Web gaining speed, and .mobi paving the way, we are excited to soon unveil the next generation of mobile Web tools and resources that will assist small-to-medium businesses in utilizing the mobile Web to reach a new audience: the mobile consumer.”
Amy Mischler, dotMobi’s Vice President of Brand and Identity Service, added, “To help continue the phenomenal growth of the mobile Web, dotMobi is making 200 highly desired ‘premium’ .mobi domain names available via a special online auction with Sedo (computer link) beginning Nov. 5 and running through Nov. 12, 2008. These .mobi names include actors.mobi, bands.mobi, blackjack.mobi, boys.mobi, cellphones.mobi, dvd.mobi, dvr.mobi, games.mobi, model.mobi, racing.mobi, stamps.mobi, vip.mobi and xxx.mobi.”
About dotMobi
dotMobi (the informal name of mTLD Top Level Domain Ltd.), headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is leading the growth of Internet use from mobile phones with the .mobi domain name. Unique among domain name providers, dotMobi ensures that services and sites developed around .mobi are optimized for use by mobile devices, so that on-the-go consumers can have confidence that a Web site will work on their mobile phones when using a .mobi address.
dotMobi is backed by leading mobile operators, network & device manufacturers, and Internet content providers, including Ericsson, GSM Association, Hutchison 3, Microsoft, Nokia, Orascom Telecom, Samsung Electronics, Syniverse, T-Mobile, Telefonica Moviles, TIM, Visa and Vodafone.
For more information on dotMobi domains and registration information, visit http://dotmobi.mobi. Visit the dotMobi blog at http://blog.mobi.
Click to call links (below) are enabled for mobile phones only, not computers.
For more information, please contact:
Vance Hedderel
dotMobi
+1-703-485-5563
vhedderel@mtld.mobi
Danielle Siemon
Edelman for dotMobi (U.S.)
+1-650-762-2947
danielle.siemon@edelman.com
Sasha Manners
Edelman for dotMobi (Europe)
+44-(0)20-7344-1200
sasha.manners@edelman.com
Just in case anyone still thinks you can do whatever you want when registering a domain name, the latest World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) decision is a textbook example of why restraint is a virtue when you have your registrar shopping cart open.
When Richard Saville-Smith decided to purchase Narnia.mobi for his eleven year old son for a birthday gift, he was taking an enormous risk. Narnia, the fictitious land in C.S. Lewis’ book series beginning with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, was recently made famous again in the Disney movie The Chronicles of Narnia. Hint: If you see the word “Disney” in the vicinity of any possible domain registration, it might be a good idea to take a pass on the name if it is a trademark.
According to the WIPO documentation, Saville-Smith stated his intention was to give the domain name to his son so that he could have a narnia.mobi email address, and felt he was free to do so because he believed the trademark had expired. Unfortunately for Saville-Smith and his son, he didn’t set up the email addresses and instead parked the names on Sedo.com (computer link). While the page was parked on Sedo, it displayed advertisements for Narnia related products, so Saville-
Smith gets paid whenever anyone clicks on the advertisments. At the time of this blog post the site is still parked.
Why is this a problem? Well, when a page is parked and generating revenue, it can no longer be considered a fan site. Even if the page earned one penny, or attempted to earn revenue, it may be considered a “bad faith” registration, and that is exactly how the panel at WIPO saw it.
Perhaps Saville-Smith was emboldened to register this domain name because it is a .mobi. After all, the market value of aftermarket .mobi domain names is a hotly disputed topic. Perhaps this would not have been treated as a big deal by another author’s estate, but Disney is another story — they have been steadily building a presence in the .mobi namespace for several years. Disney.mobi, CampRock.mobi, and HSM2.mobi, especially when there is no HSM2.com are all examples of how the Disney company takes their .mobi positioning very seriously. I wouldn’t doubt it if we see Narnia.mobi developed in the near future with the release of their next movie, Prince Caspian, as well as an upcoming third Narnia film slated for 2010.
Certainly I feel badly for the eleven year old boy. In order to avoid this type of disappointing scenario in the future, if you are considering registering a domain name for someone else, the best plan of action is to ensure it is not protected by a trademark.
