Starting today, domain names are being offered with the extension .mobi to trademark holders such as Microsoft, Nokia, and Vodafone. Critics of the .mobi domain say these new domains are going to cost corporations millions of dollars in fraud lawsuits when domain sitters buy up popular domain names with the new .mobi extension. Verizon Communications told the Financial Times that they only registered verizon.mobi to avoid others from taking it and attempting to sell it back to the company for a huge profit. Many web developers, such as myself, agree that the .mobi extension will not be useful and can only create trouble and panic across the web.

As mobile devices such as the Blackberry can already access websites with .com .net, .org extensions there is no real need for a .mobi other than for domain name sales companies such as GoDaddy to generate more revenue of the sale of the new extension. No one can yet agree on whether or not the .mobi buy out will become a domain and infringer’s omega of profits. However, I can agree that a tremendous amount of trademark conflict will arise out of the valuable new domain name extensions. It’s up to the community of the internet and how valuable views are on the .mobi extension by both developers and those who visit websites with a .mobi extension. Stay tuned!

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