Hi all
   
  In light of recent debates about allowing registrations for domains such as fredsrealestate.au I thought this article in Business Week was interesting about dotMobi.
   
  In the article, Sarah Deutsch, General Counsel of VERizon, is quoted as saying big-name companies are being forced to register dotMobi domains or risk brand damage. Sarah says "Anytime one of these top-level domains is introduced, we are forced to register these domains proactively because if you don't do that, you are going to find your trademark infringed. It might be linked with pornography or phishing or fraud. Companies are forced to come in and protect their crown jewels." Sarah goes on to say that dotMobi names don?t offer the domain owners anything they can?t do with their existing domains. 
   
  I guess the same argument can be largely said about the recent proposals. And again it comes down to companies will be forced to register additional domains for negligible advantage to ward off cybersquatters. The Australian public is pretty well educated by now and know what a .com.au address is.
   
  Thinking more about it, we?d be just as well off campaigning against the use of ?www? in domain names. 3 characters that largely don?t signify anything, and was subject of a spoof story in The Register some time ago that I inadvertently included in the news as serious news!
   
  Anyway, read the story below, or go to the auDA site for the news <http://auda.org.au/domain-news> and see a few more articles such as in the FT and Australian, that were also posted to the list today.
   
  A New Wave of Web Addresses
  An Irish company is registering new names with a mobile-friendly dot-mobi extension. But who's signing up and why?
  http://businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2006/tc20060927_407386.htm
   
  Cheers
  David
   
--------- 
David Goldstein
 address: 4/3 Abbott Street
           COOGEE NSW 2034
           AUSTRALIA
 email: Goldstein_David &#167;yahoo.com.au
 phone: +61 418 228 605 (mobile); +61 2 9665 5773 (home)
 
"Every time you use fossil fuels, you're adding to the problem. Every time you forgo fossil fuels, you're being part of the solution" - Dr Tim Flannery