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."

Comments

add this to /etc/sendmail/access

[grub]

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

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

Alabama City TLD

[AtariAmarok]

Where's .biloxi and .tuscaloosa ?

Re:Alabama City TLD

[Cutriss]

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

Biloxi is in Mississippi.

Re: Alabama City TLD

[Black Parrot]

> Where's .biloxi and .tuscaloosa ?

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

Re: Alabama City TLD

[UserGoogol]

You have to realize that Llanfair PG created that name soley for the privelidge of having a very long name.

And regarding your sig as it currently is, Homer looks like Krusty because originally there was going to be some sort of plot about how Bart didn't respect his father, but respected a clown who looked just like him. Didn't pan out, but they kept the character.

.mob?

[Tyler Eaves]

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?

[Lawbeefaroni]

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

Re:.mob?

[SlartibartfastJunior]

Do you really want guys in black suits knocking on your door because you picked the wrong .mob territory?

Re:.mob?

[DjMd]

or the even more obvious .cell ?
Or are they saving that for when single cells get their own IPv4 er v6..... v128?

Re:.mob?

[System.out.println()]

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

Re:.mob?

[iminplaya]

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

Re:.mob?

[dietz]

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?

[iso]

Perhaps because the majority of the English-speaking world calls them "mobile" phones? Only Americans call them "cell" phones.

Re:.mob?

[dasmegabyte]

You said it. To type out ".mobile" on my cell phone takes 16 keystrokes. And that's without the ever present fat fingering! You're look at 10-20 seconds just to tap out that extension.

Ideally, mobile phones should get special dispensations -- numeric-only URLs, no document extensions, etc. I've written a few WML apps, and the biggest challenge was making them easy to get to via the keypad. Something like tiny url -- concentrating on numbers and the letters a,d,g,j,m,p,t and w -- worked best.

Re:.mob?

[Mondrames]

That would be great, but I think the article actually implied that instead of sending a text message to 55512345678 you could just as easily send it to dietz.mobile and it would get to your phone. Not that it's faster to type, but it would be easier to remember.

too long a name

[mgs1000]

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

[the_c0de_man]

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

Re:too long a name

[neverkevin]

It wouldn't be too hard to have the phone/pda default to .mobile for the TLD. For example if you type in slashdot to your phone it would try slashdot.mobile and if you wanted to go to www.slashdot.org you could type www.slashdot.org

Re:too long a name

[Rahga]

I mentioned this later, but my thoughts... Just use voice recognition /w DNS. Hit a button, "Call rahga at virgin mobile", call goes through....

Re:too long a name

[British]

You're right. Mind you, my phone and I assume numeruos others have shortcuts for .com, net. etc.

I propose the new TLD be easy on the keypads, how about .5?

yahoo.5

sprintpcs.5

Nice and easy to type in, well, at least the TLD part of it.

me first?

[bbsguru]

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?

[Anonymous Coward]

how about bat.mobile?

Re:me first?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would the registry block the new goatse.mobile?

Uhm... no...

[LostCluster]

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?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

[michael path]

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

rcpt to: path@sprint.mbolie^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: path@sprunt.mlobie^H^H^H^H
501 5.5.8 Nope. Not even close.
rcpt to: path@sprint.mobil
501 5.5.9Try Exxon

ad nauseum.

Verbosity?

[avalys]

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?

Re:Verbosity?

[Drantin]

there's also of course, news.com.com

Re:Verbosity?

[skinny.net]

slashdot.org is much better. If we needed complete info in TLDs, we'd need slashdot.dupe-and-troll-factory-im-cmdrtaco-i-rule

Missing link...

[LostCluster]

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

Ya know...

[suso]

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!

D'oh!

[AtariAmarok]

Right you are. Biloxi is in Alabama just as Spartanburg is in North Carolina.

Unless it is restricted, sites associated with the city of Mobile will likely want to get domains at this TLD, just like those television sites use the Tuvalu country (.tv) domain.

People are not used to this

[Ich Bin Zu]

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

[pbug]

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

[ChiralSoftware]

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 to do it now...

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

[Anonymous Coward]

> 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.

Wrong. http://www.opera.com/products/smartphone/

The conspiracy behind the domain

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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

[G4from128k]

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.

What about the keypads.

[Lord Graga]

QWERTY, or something similar, in mobile phones (and some PDA's) is still rare for most of us. Typing .mobile with a keypad on a mobile phone would take like, 14 keypresses... I suggest that they they change it to .mob, .mo, or .m, for more pleasant surfing.

For those that remember the UFO Tv series

[tekrat]

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?

[thedillybar]

This is very annoying and not neccessary.

"8005551212@messaging.nextel.com" 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)

Re:new.net

[Gsus411]

Screw that. Try ORSC instead. They have been around longer and they aren't crapware authors.

This is fucking ridiculous.

[JessLeah]

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.

[JessLeah]

The author is probably one of those new-school, semi-computer-literate thinkers who has been slowly coaxed into believing that large corporations are wholly benign entities which have the public's best interests in mind. Many people nowadays seem to honestly believe that. 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. (Ever been to EPCOT Center in Disneyworld? It's all about that "benevolent corporate sponsor" mindset-- "Ooh, look at all of these wonderful exhibits created by all of these wonderful corporations, who are working tirelessly to improve our world...") When, in reality, the big corps are pretty much out for their own interests, and (to a much lesser extent) the interests of the wealthy upper-class in general.

The general population allows corporations to do as they will precisely because they are under the impression that the corps are doing what's best for the general population!

Remember, a lot of people nowadays honestly believe that Microsoft invented the personal computer. Most Americans see Bill Gates (and any other wealthy and successful businessperson who they've heard of) as a hero. There is a lot of factual distortion (and bona-fide historical revisionism) and hero-worship going on in and around the computer field. Anyone who makes a lot of money is considered a role model, and is kinda just 'assumed' to be doing Good Things(TM) for all of humanity. Their good deeds are hailed forever, and their bad deeds are ignored or quickly forgotten.

Hell, I read one little rant online once whose thesis was basically "Without Microsoft, the Internet would only be used by the Military, and the only computers out there would be giant mainframes, also used by the Military and maybe Universities". The factual distortion inherent in such naive and fawning behaviour towards megacorps is extreme...

This seems to be the sort of mindset that would lead to the megacorps being able to do a land-grab on entire TLDs without anyone even giving a crud. If the megacorps are benign, and out to help humanity and improve the world, and if the big CEOs are heroes to all humankind-- why should anyone care?

Re:This is fucking ridiculous.

[Dun Malg]

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 and M-61 20mm 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?

[Supp0rtLinux]

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

Phone numbers already are globally unique

[yelvington]

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

[JoeShmoe]

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
.

enough already

[spudgun]

Abolish .com .org .net .biz etc
And terminate .info and .name with a flame-thrower.

Create .com.us .org.us .com.uk
etc

Have, for example, ibm.com map to ibm.com.us if you are in the .us and ibm.com.uk if you are in the uk etc......

The only reason me need more TLDs is because we have only 1 .com for the whole world

Make Pepsi register in every country they trade in.....

I can see it now, in the year 2050 when we live on mars and Europa ... still saying "all the cool domains are taken."

Scam

[Jesus IS the Devil]

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.

I dont understand this trend

[razmaspaz]

Why not standardize on mobile.microsoft.com
mobile.nokia.com

it is a natural progression to use the prefix not the suffix. Just like www and ftp and other protocols. I don't get it

slashdot.organization

[ldrhcp]

Would the Internet have been the success it is if to visit this website I had to type slashdot.organization?