Registrations for the world’s first mobile phone web domain — .mobi — have commenced today from the international organisation’s Dublin headquarters. The organisation responsible for the domain dotMobi is backed by a consortium of tech industry giants including Microsoft, HP, Vodafone, 3, the GSM Association, Orange, Nokia, Samsung and Sun.
The first phase of registrations begins today will allow members of mobile industry associations to have an opportunity to register their trademark names as a .mobi domain.
Trademark holders will be able to register their trademarks as .mobi names from 12 June and individual users may start filing for registration on 28 August.
“The launch of this unique mobile domain is moving ahead at full speed and on schedule,” said Neil Edwards, CEO of dotMobi.
“It is with great enthusiasm that we congratulate our supporters, registrars, registrants and mobile users. We are confident that dotMobi will revolutionise the optimised mobile internet and positively impact consumers in the mobile community. We’re all working together to make history, one .mobi domain name at a time.”
PricewaterhouseCoopers Belgium (PwC) has been appointed by dotMobi to verify the .mobi Sunrise domain name registration processes. Bart Lieben of PwC explained: “Our IP audit approach, utilising best practices, will reinforce the success of the dotMobi registration launch and ensure the long-term adoption of the .mobi domain for content providers. The fact that dotMobi and PwC are teaming up demonstrates our mutual commitment to the IP and trademark community.”
DotMobi was designated as the official worldwide registry for the .mobi domain by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) in July 2005. A list of ICANN-accredited registrars for .mobi domain names can be found at http://pc.mtld.mobi/switched/fiandaregistrar.html.
By John Kennedy
