A sign of strength for .mobi? Big companies file UDRPs to get .mobi domains.
Are big companies starting to pay more attention to .mobi? Recent UDRP filings with WIPO and National Arbitration Forum show this may be the case.
In the past two months, Capital One, Airtran, Tufts, State Farm, and Primerica have all filed UDRP complaints to get their hands on .mobi domain names.
Since .mobi was released there have been 51 .mobi disputes filed with National Arbitration Forum and 100 at World Intellectual Property Forum. Of these, only 8 have been denied: ufa.mobi, interactivebrokers.mobi, xxxx.mobi, sania.mobi, mps.mobi, assurant.mobi (denied twice), and telpay.mobi.
Of course just because someone files a UDRP doesn’t mean they intend to use the domain if they win. Here are some of the big names that have won .mobi arbitration cases in the past and what they’re doing with the domains now:
Vonage – does not resolve
Playboy – does not resolve
Intuit – does not resolve
Harvard Business Review – does not resolve
Craftsman – does not resolve
Morgan Stanley – forwards to .com
Wine Spectator – forwards to .com
Limited Brands – does not resolve
Raytheon – does not resolve
Texas Instruments – in use as mobile web site
American Airlines – amazingly, American Airlines doesn’t even forward AmericanAirlines.mobi to its main web site, even though it advertisies aa.com is mobile capable.
Standard & Poors – does not resolve
Barnes & Noble – does not resolve
“A sign of strength for .mobi?”
Not likely.
I suspect they are just seeking to protect their turf.
A company is obligated to protect their Intellectual Property Rights…and I know
you know that.
.MOBI lovers shouldn’t get too excited.
Patrick
Patrick!
Do you think all these companies will go after every single TM infringement when ICANN allows registration of thousands and thousands of Dot Vanity extension? You guessed right, I don’t think so!
They went after those guy’s because like you, they cannot be absolutely certain that .MObi will not be a future hit! take a page out of the comments made by Rick Latona recently and posted on DNJournal:
http://www.ricklatona.com/2008/08/18/i-wish-i-had-taken-cctlds-and-idns-more-seriously/
I respect Rick for making those comments, considering his previous ambivalence and he is perhaps one of the best domain investors and seller out there!
Cynicism is not going o help domainers very much. Every asset has diversification, why in the world do domainers insist that .COM has to be the only extension worth investing in? It’s very childish indeed!!
I suspect these companies have lawyers who need something to bill their clients for.
Thanx for getting my hopes up Andrew.I’m drowning in .mobi over here.
Andrew,
Would you care to post the large companies that use .mobi? They are springing up quite frequently.
You can find some of the large ones at this link http://why.mobi/brands.php
There are a bunch more too.
Johny, many of the companies on why.mobi aren’t really using .mobi. They’re just forwarding the domain to their mobile web sites. These companies could just as well set up a standard that domain.com/m will forward to their mobile sites.
Andrew, I’m afraid you are wrong. The list of companies/brands on Why.mobi that Johny posted are based on the list maintained at Mobility by its owner (http://mobility.mobi/showthread.php?t=10). Those companies are either 1) Using the .mobi as a stand-alone site, or 2) Promoting their .mobi if they redirect to a .com. So it is indisputable that those companies take .mobi seriously and are not just defensive regs.
Thanks for reply Andrew, 🙂
Now I counted 21 out of 42 go diretly to .mobi (which is around 50%, now the others all redirected to something else. INcluding “M.” auto detection, info.mobie ect…)
So is the percentage counting redirects in favor for .mobi or is it in favor for the othrs? It seems to me that there is no standard for the mobile web “But .mobi”
How will the end user find out which site will work smoothe in there short time of viewing the mobile website?
For example if you live in NYC and want to see the post, http://nypost.mobi will give you everything and only made for a mobile phone.
There are many many more major company sites like this that are up also.
I think it is a growing trend, that may need a bit of time, but the enduser is the only person to judge this upon and which will make this Top Level Domain rise?
Great blog though
-Johny
The iPhone will be the death of .mobi.
Yet Apple features widgets on their site (and even in their commercials) that are .mobi sites.
Companies will just register their .mobi to protect their brand.
Yet, week after week after week large global companies announce the release of their .mobi’s.
Andrew, I have a suggestion for you.
If you would like to be a real reporter and write unbiased views, pick up a damn web enabled phone or an iPhone and actually visit these sites and then talk knowledgeably about the pluses and minuses.
I am getting very tired of reading nothing more than your opinion as if it is gospel and the the official view of online periodical.
And those national and international brands given to you in the previous link?
http://why.mobi/brands.php
Each and every one have an active .mobi site and linkage. Not to mention some, like BMW, have multiple .mobi sites for their new model releases.
But, I guess if you don’t actually look at those sites mentioned then there will be nothing for you to fear nor will you have to retract any part of your claim.
Just make an blind unfounded statement and others will continue to hold you up on a pedistal.
You sound nothing more than the uninformed idiotic domainers when you make statements such as “They’re just forwarding the domain to their web sites” or “they’re just protecting their brand”
That’s because you are accessing them on a PC therefore that is what auto detecting is all about.
Do you need a link to a definition of auto detection?
Gerry & Anonymous,
First, I didn’t say any of the companies on why.mobi were defensive registrations.
Second, have you visited these sites on a mobile phone? If the sites were using auto detection, they wouldn’t forward me to a mobile site with a different URL.
I did look at them on my web enabled mobile phone. I went to them in order and this is what I saw:
BMW.mobi – real .mobi
ESPN.mobi – redirects to m.espn.go.com/wireless
Fox.mobi – real .mobi
Marriott.mobi – forwards to mobile.usablenet.com/www.marriott.com/default.mi?un_itt_redirect
DHL.mobi – real .mobi
Disney.mobi – forwards to m.disney.go.com/t/index
Time.mobi – real .mobi
Ferrari.mobi – forwards to mobile.f12008.it
DolceGabbana.mobi – real .mobi
BofA.mobi – forwards to .bankofamerica.com/mobile/
Look, it’s obviously a good thing they these companies are promoting their .mobi domains.
Johny – I agree, there is no standard. It would be great it .mobi became the standard. I want to see that happen. I want to be able to type cnn.mobi into my browser and have it pull up a mobile version on CNN.com, but it doesn’t. That’s the problem. Until the top 100 sites on the web use .mobi to at least redirect to their mobile sites, it’s far from a standard. I wish mTLD would spend its time trying to get these top sites to use .mobi rather then figure out how to sell more “premium domains” to line their pockets. I have been a big supporter of .mobi, and perhaps the first person to say it’s a new TLD that “makes sense”, until I figured out that all they cared about was a quick buck. They haven’t followed up at all on making sure people who bought “premium domains” actually developed a site in accordance to the terms. They also ditched most of the RFP process in favor of auctioning off domains to make more money, which is not in the best (long term) interests of the domain. And since there is widespread cybersquatting on .mobi, many brands can’t use .mobi as their preferred extension.
Gerry – don’t talk to me about retracting statements when you make these false statements:
“If you would like to be a real reporter and write unbiased views, pick up a damn web enabled phone or an iPhone and actually visit these sites and then talk knowledgeably about the pluses and minuses.”
I did pick up a damn web enabled phone.
“But, I guess if you don’t actually look at those sites mentioned then there will be nothing for you to fear nor will you have to retract any part of your claim.”
Ditto.
This stems from this commentary and many you have posted in the past.
No matter what the occasion, no matter what little ray of good news there is about .mobi, you have to place your own biased slant on .mobi.
It is clear, very clear, that you don’t like it, have no use for it, and don’t care to hear about about it.
Yet, it is good for the confrontations and good for the controversies it stirs up therefore good for the rankings.
Previously, I also had to ask or remind you to look as sites from a mobile device rather than a PC.
In regards to Disney, it is not Disney, per se, but certain promos aimed at young crowds such as High School Musical 2 on HSM2.mobi.
But see, you would not know that as you do not follow mobi except to report a little snippet of news followed by the news according to Andrew.
Naturally, you will say, “Hey, look! I was simply reporting the news buy relating how many URDP’s are not sites”.
How about a percentage of URDP’s on .mobi vs. com? How many .com’s that end up winning the UDRP are actually built as sites for those winners? Most likely redirected.
And perhaps, just perhaps, there are countless other major national and international companies that have secured their .mobi and have no idea what the hell to do with it or how to build a mobile site.
Or it is just taking time.
Is it any surprise at all that American Airlines would seize a squatter on their mobi? But the counter part in .com is AA.com?
Or BarnesAndNoble.mobi would be seize that blatant TM violation but the uses BN.com?
Harvard Business Review is actually Harvard Business Online.com? Texas Instruments is TI.com?
Why give simply part of the story? That is the only part the writer is wanting to presest.
Perhaps, just perhaps, maybe all those companies listed above are assessing their needs and how to go about implementing a mobile site. Perhaps those who only use 2 letters are waiting for mTLD to release 2 letter .mobis.
And yes, this comes from someone invested in and designing mobi sites but also from someone involved with domains for more than 12 years.
And this comes from someone who, up until a couple of years ago, never would join a forum nor comment on a story like this.
But enough is enough. I for one am sick and tired of all the bad advice that I see doled out by the experts, gurus and domain gods who want everyone to think, act, but most importantly, buy the domains they would buy (or better yet – buy their domains). And these domain columns, blogs, and magazines are so slanted in general as everyone has an agenda they are trying to push or a product to sell.
Do you have to like and love something to report on it? No, not at all. Should you report fairly? Yes. Should you do research and some fact finding to verify what you want to say? Yes.
I am reading another column where the writer is asking how on earth mTLD could possibly award a domain like YouTube.mobi to anyone else other than Google. The facts are the domain was awarded to a TM holder who applied for TM on You Tube in 2000 and awarded the TM in 2002 – a full 3 years before the You Tube as we know it was even founded and named by the 3 former PayPal employees.
That is how mTLD awarded a TM domain to a TM holder.
But again, no facts checked. Very simple to do.
So I think I will go back to not reading columns like yours.
From latest rumors Rapper Jay-Z is working
behind the scene’s with the owner of Hiphop.mobi As you might not know Jay-Z is the president of Defjam records and Sport Bar 40/40.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay-Z
Disney.mobi – forwards to m.disney.go.com/t/index
Disney.com – forwards to disney.go.com/index
speaking of .mobi
when I did the recent update on DropGrabs.com
there were quite a few word .mobi available…
for reg fee.
not my names…
I just discovered them with others as available and wanted to share the list
with you all… there were over 1100
domains in the posted list 8-25-08
more than just .mobi
but some GOOD .mobi
that’s my Aug. treat for my friends at:
DomainNameWIRE.com
Have fun…
~DomainBELL (Patricia)
Andrew, what would you rather type:
Marriott.mobi or
mobile.usablenet.com/www.marriott.com/default.mi?un_itt_redirect
So tell me why this redirect matters to you?
Marriott contracts with a service provider, usablenet, who provides them a structured content platform. So Marriott pays for their .mobi domain and pays for this service to supply content to it and yet somehow this is notably a bad thing for .mobi.