Online Auction Update: Postponed

As you're likely aware, dotMobi, for a number of reasons, chose to exercise its legal right to void the Sedo-hosted online auction of December 2007.

Since voiding the auction, our goal has been to identify a way forward that is fairest to all and that best facilitates the development of high-quality content for mobile web users. After further review, we have been able to identify some cases where it may be possible to allocate registration tokens without an auction (and without substantial controversy). The remaining names will be included in a new auction.

To resolve as many disputes as possible, dotMobi has postponed the auction previously announced for January 23, 2008. The rules for this new auction have not been fixed, and dotMobi will carefully consider any suggestions from the community with respect to the new auction’s structure. Please feel free to email your suggestions to premium@mtld.mobi.

Comments

[GeMulder]

The best thing mTLD could do; compliments!

[peter smith]

respect good job it restored our faith

[Martin]

Wow..didn't expect an ougtcome like this.
Great work !!
Now..get on with promotion !!!

[sohbet]

thanks..

[PCAERO]

URL battle: m vs. .mobi: See http://rcrnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080107/SUB/977623548.

[dotmobiguy]

Firstly, thanks for the effort mTLD has made.

However, I saw many people are selling and have sold many Trademark .mobi domains which they registered them before landrush by a fake trademark.

E.g. abc.mobi, youtube.mobi, tom.mobi

They are using fake trademark and regged these names, we domainers and webmasters are very angry with this, and it seems mTLD did nothing.

I have been contacted with one owner who owns one of the fake trademark .mobi, I asked if the domain is legit for selling. The guy told me that it is very safe because he has got permission from mTLD to sell it.

And he also said that mTLD allow them to reg such names by fake trademark, and allow them to sell because it will push .mobi market, is this true?

We don't think this is true, but as so many months past, and many domainers have contacted mTLD regarding this issue, but still no official reply. Such names are still being sold on market.

This situation does let us down, and we have lost faith to mTLD and we start to feel mTLD only wants to make money than run this extension properly.

There are too many discussion on this issue on famous domain name forum like namepros, dnforum, and it seems mTLD didn't check this out?

I am looking forward to hear your reply

Thank you

[Vance Hedderel, Director of PR and Communications, dotMobi]

In regards to pcaero's notice above about RCR Wireless' recent article on "m." and ".mobi" ... The Nielson data about the top five web sites having mobile URLs which are inconsistent in their convention is not entirely accurate. What that article doesn't capture is that four of those five sites also have .mobi addresses which resolve correctly. In that light, it's obvious that the .mobi convention is the most popular. That Nielson did not publish their results using the .mobi URL shows that they simply do not (yet) understand the .mobi domain and how it simplifies mobile content discovery.

[Caroline Greer]

dotMobiguy,

Thank you for your comments. I have responded to you seperately since you emailed as well but in order to allow others to see the response -

dotMobi had several measures in place during its Sunrise Period to protect trademark holders - eg, the sunrise dispute resolution process administered by WIPO and the audit conducted by PwC on trademark registrations.

We do not condone and never have condoned the registration of fake trademarks and the standard UDRP process is in place for trademark holders whose rights have been violated.

Please note that as a Registry, we ourselves cannot and do not adjudicate on trademarks – that is why there are procedures in place which are administered by trademark professionals.

I hope this helps with your query. [We are not aware of any outstanding queries].

Caroline.

[Richard Tenney]

Guys try EBAY thats where smart people auction everything. They can handle the traffic and while your at it put all the names your holding back on and get this thing going. How many of the names you have sold are up and running? Isnt your whole arguement for not letting these names out so people want park them? I guess that you are interested in getting the most money for them so your guilty of parking the 5000 names. Just admit it and it will be better for everyone. And by the way what are you doing with this money try spending it on Super Bowl ads like Go Daddy? My poll last week of 500 of our customers 0 percent had heard of .mobi.

[Luis Zamora]

Great call!!!! As I stated before, that (postponing the auction#3) is the best decision mTLD has made, no third error will be tolerated in a weak .mobi structure as it is today. Next logic step is to adjudicate the names to the #2 auction winners or if they pass on it(because they lack confidence in .mobi already) then the #1 auction winner might take it, and if no one wants it, then you can proceed with the third auction.

Of course, make sure your winners stop lawsuits; then the .mobi movement will continue again its great trend that it showed before this series of errors.

Final point: Use SEDO services only if you are 100% sure they can handle the auction with 0% errors, again, another mistake will destroy .mobi!!!!!!!

Luis

My previous comments...

Well, I won a LLL .mobi domain name on that week (December 5th) and I though it was in jeopardy, but it turned out to be a private owned domain the one I won. My own experience is that the Dec 5th error was reflected in the trust of the previous supporting investors, I only paid a couple hundred for a three letter .mobi domain (???) isn't it loosing confidence right away?

I'm also thinking that if mTLD group thinks this was a good estrategy to boost the price of the very generic domains, and gain money overnight, they will pay far more in lawsuits and time in court, they may also go to bankrupcy if the already .mobi investors sue them for dropping the prices of their investment.

For many reasons it would be better to lett the #2 auction winners to take the domains at the final winning price and compensate #1 auction winners with 10% of the earnings...

[Holly]

Thank you for holding off on this auction.

[Holly]

Thank you for holding off on this auction.

[Stefano]

Hi,

As a Trademark owner, and having missed a registration period due to a technicality, I would like a second chance at registering the domain, which is still available, before its released to the general public for bidding.

Regards.

[Caroline Greer]

Stefano,

I am not clear if you are referring to the Premium Name Application Process for Trademark Holders (now closed) but please feel free to email your full details to legal@mtld.mobi and we can clarify the situation.

Many thanks.