New Net Battle Over ".mobile" Looming

John IPsen writes "A group of big companies, including Nokia, Vodafone and Microsoft, today applied to ICANN to have a new ".mobile" domain in the next round of new Internet domains for connecting phones and PDAs to the Internet. But while they say they aren't aware of any competition, it seems that some others have been preparing their bids for a lot longer and a big battle may be brewing. More here."

add this to /etc/sendmail/access

From:.mobile ERROR:"550 Go away, spammer."

Right where it belongs, along with .biz and .info

Re:add this to /etc/sendmail/access (Zombie PDAs)

Great, now spammers are going to create exploits for phones and PDAs as relays for their filth. I wonder how many e-mails a zombie Pocket PC can crank out before the the user sees a $10,000 for bandwidth usage? I guess the antivirus indusry will see a nice boost in revenues for AV for Blackberrys, Palms, PocketPCs, Symbian phones, etc.

Alabama City TLD

Where's .biloxi and .tuscaloosa ?

Re:Alabama City TLD

Sigh...Funny, yes. Informative, no.

Biloxi is in Mississippi.

Re: Alabama City TLD

> Where's .biloxi and .tuscaloosa ?

In Wales you'd need a .llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyll-llantysi liogogogoch [bucknell.edu] (without the Slashdot space).

.mob?

Why not continure the 'tradition' of 3 letter TLDS and use .mob? It's even descriptive of the companies trying to push this through...

Re:.mob?

And it's a hell of a lot easier to type in on cell phones.

Re:.mob?

I think the point of this is that you wouldn't NEED to type the TLD. They want to make this TLD the default search domain on mobile devices.

So, for example, http://google/ would take you to google.mobile on a cell phone.

That's the impression I got from the article, anyway:
The application could turn out to be more politically charged than its proponents hope, because the mobile domain is not just another Internet domain like .biz, extending the address space. Instead, it is a new text-based user friendly addressing scheme for phones and mobile devices, which could replace and extend the power of phone numbers - just as the current Internet domain scheme did for numeric Internet addresses, replacing 207.46.245.214 with "microsoft.com", for instance.

Re:.mob?

If they did that flash.mob would be one of the first domains snatched up.

Re:.mob?

Yes. While setting my spam filters I would go to .mob rules?

too long a name

Am I the only one who thinks a 5-digit TLD is just too long to type in using the keypad on a cell phone?

Re:too long a name

No. And a six-digit TLD is even worse.

me first?

This is too much fun! Can I be the first to register olds.mobile? hupp.mobile? auto.mobile? alexander.calder.mobile.hangs.in.a.museum?? semi.mobile? quasi.mobile.rang.notre.dame.bells? Can the .matic domain be far behind?

Re:me first?

Would the registry block the new goatse.mobile?

Uhm... no...

Mobile devices don't need their own TLD for DNS names. Just what's wrong with with using the existing ones?

.mobile why do we need another?

Personally I dont think there needs to be another .anything right now. what good is .mobile gonna do? rather than be the next haven for spammers, stupid vhosts, and other useless junk..

.mobile is too long.

oh yeah. the last thing i need to address from my phone is a longer TLD.

rcpt to: [e-mail]^H^H^H^H^H
501 5.5.6 You're an IDIOT
CRAP!
501 5.5.7 That doesn't work either.
rcpt to: [e-mail]^H^H^H^H
501 5.5.8 Nope. Not even close.
rcpt to: [e-mail]
501 5.5.9Try Exxon

ad nauseum.

Verbosity?

Is there something wrong with .mbl? I don't see why we have to spell the whole thing out: the existing TLDs are all blissfully concise.

Long TLDS distract from the domain names themselves: which looks better, www.slashdot.org or www.slashdot.nonprofitorganization?

Missing link...

Anybody notice that the "More here..." article is the same URL as the other link in the summary?

Ya know...

They don't need a .mobile domain to connect their phones and PDAs to the internet, don't they? ;-)

Like it will matter, people will just continue to find unique domains and register stuff like

myphonenumber.com
myphonenumber.net
myphonenum ber.org
myphonenumber.biz
myphonenumber.cc
myph onenumber.tv
myphonenumber.de
myphonenumber.mx

Because, what if, forbid, someone just randomly types in myphonenumber.mx, but doesn't try myphonenumber.com. Oh no!

People are not used to this

I don't know if it is a good idea. Our company website has the .ws domain. When I give people our website address, they always ask: dot what? becasue they always expect .com or .net.

Not your ordinary TLD

According to the article this namesapce is strictly for mobile devices. The actual TLD has not decided yet. This is going to be a namespace for your mobile number for instance bob.jones.cingular.mobile will be your mobile phone or wifi address. Well let us see how this one plays out.

It's mostly marketing but it's a good idea

These companies need to do anything they can do to get more mobile data use out of their networks, hardware and software. Margins on voice traffic are dropping and will continue to drop, hastened by VoIP, so how to make up for lost revenue? Pretty soon a large chunk of high-margin international calling traffic will be VoIP, which basically means flat rate, which means... no more big bucks for ATT, etc. By selling new services, like wireless data the carriers can save themselves (they hope). Another problem for Nokia and friends is that handsets are starting to be manufactured in China, and Nokia will not be able to build plain old voice handsets at competitive prices, so it needs to get away from the commoditized market of voice handsets, which means it needs better entertainment abilities, which means wireless data. A TLD could really fit into that. The wireless web has great potential but consumer awareness is poor, because there aren't any good ways for consumers to identify mobile content and there aren't any easy ways for websites to produce mobile content without learning a bunch of new technologies. Well, there are some ways [chiralsoftware.net] to do it now...

The conspiracy behind the domain

I hear the American Thumb Rehabilitation Association is the real force behind this domain name.

For those that remember the UFO Tv series

Shado.mobile

Now, that might be a cool URL after all. I say we also register a TLD named "Alpha" so we can have moonbase.alpha

Hrmmm. You think Gerry Anderson would mind?

Six letter TLDs?

This is very annoying and not neccessary.

"[e-mail]" works fine for me, and I don't think we need a ".mobile" until someone shows a very good reason to make one.

1) It's a lot of letters to type.
2) http://nextel.mobile/ just looks weird as hell.
3) It will break some applications (more than .info already did possibly)
4) I don't believe that it's necessary (or even convenient for a significant number of people)

This is fucking ridiculous.

Why should a single corporate entity control an entire TLD?

I can 'kinda' understand if Microsoft wanted .microsoft or Nokia wanted .nokia, but even then-- why waste the resources of the top-level DNS servers for something which will only serve to benefit one company?

This is absolutely disgusting. It's bad enough that Verisign/NetworkSolutions/whatever has such control over .COM/.NET and over the DNS system in general (kof kof SITEFINDER kof kof), but now they want to start giving entire freaking TLDs over to companies wholesale?

This is bullshit!

Re:This is fucking ridiculous.

They seem to believe the snazzy corporate slogans like "GE: We Bring Good Things to Life", and honestly believe that the megacorps are out to help humanity.

Hey, GE put as much care and attention into designing and building GAU-8 30mm [fas.org] and M-61 20mm [fas.org] multibarrel cannon systems as they put into refrigerators and dishwashers. Customer satisfaction is important to their business. If your food spoiled, or you dishes came out dirty, or the T-72 tank you were shooting at from your A-10 warthog didn't explode, would you buy another fridge, dishwasher, or GAU-8 Avenger 30mm cannon from GE again? They're a real people company because they have to be!

And what about us small-timers?

As the article points out, its 45K to apply and well over 1 million to complete the process and get everything setup. But what about the individual and openness? I for one would like my own personal andrew.mobile... or maybe even andrew.myisp.mobile. After all, I have number portability now. Why not also have domain portability in regards to my wireless equipment? Wouldn't it be nice to switch providers... whether of my 3G network or my 802.11b, but keep my andrew.myisp.mobile and my phone number?

Also... not sure how many others were bothered by the presence of M$ on the committee. Don't they have enough of their toes in enough industries? Now they want to be part of the control of the TLD for the mobile space??? Add up the net-worth of all the companies involved and M$ has the most $$$ which means they have the most strongarm potential. This isn't meant as a flame war, but rather a call for each of us to submit our opinions to ICANN about the presence of M$ (who isn't really a telco-type company... but just a software company) on the committee. If M$ is going to be onboard (as a s/w company), so should Trolltech and Palm and some of the other more *open* vendors who's software are also used in mobile devices. Otherwise, all I see is yet another entity that M$ can bully its way around, not to mention the fear of the .mobile root server possibly running on Windows???

The only thing necessary for Micro$oft to triumph is for a few good programmers to do nothing". North County Computers [nccomp.com]

Phone numbers already are globally unique

Phone numbers already are globally unique, so there is no need to have second-level domain names within a mobile TLD. Having carriers or hardware makers involved is only counterproductive. We don't need any more vendor lock-in opportunities.

On the other hand ... globally available free access to MY cellphone for the purpose of delivering messages sounds like an open door for yet more spam. Phonenumber.mbl is just too easy.

Saddest line of the entire article

ICANN charges a non-refundable $45,000 for an application, and the total cost of developing a proper bid is reckoned to run into millions

What better way to foster innovation and good ideas than to make sure the barrier to entry is so unbelievably high that even three of the largest corporations on the planet --combined-- are thought to have "barely" a chance at floating a few new letters through cyberspace?

There's articifical scarcity, then there is intellegence scarcity. Five years after ICANN's creation, we still have (for all intents and purposes) no new TLDs. How many meetings in Hawaii and Barbados has that taken?

If Microsoft wants .mobile, guess what, they can add it to Internet Explorer and the new TLD will exist literally overnight. I'd actually be in favor of this horrible break of standards because it would teach everyone a valuable lesson that these precious root servers are modern feudalism and we serfs should wise up and go form our own government and let the 14 non-elected lords go out and dig up their own turnips.

-JoeShmoe
.

Scam

This is just another scam to get money from suckers' wallets. We have more than enough domain names as is. Domain registries are good money makers. After all, they're basically selling hot air. There's practically no overhead other than setting up a few DNS servers.

Dot coms will always rule.