Verizon: No particular business need for dotMobi

Tomorrow, the new mobile top-level domain dotMobi goes on sale for the general public, but critics in the wireless industry, legal field and academia are coming out against the recent glut of domains--because their existence pressures brand owners to either pony up to protect themselves now or face dealing with cybersquatters in the future. Verizon's associate general counsel Sarah Deutsch perhaps says it best: "What we would not want to happen is for this name to be an infringer's paradise... Most of the new domain names have been failures and the vast majority of valuable real estate still rests in 'dotcom'." We've covered this topic [1] extensively [2] in the past [3], but this is the first time a carrier has come out and dismissed the domain openly.

Chief executive of dotmobi, Neil Edwards, said the domain names' prices are more expensive than dotcom or doteu prices in order to deter cybersquatters from speculating. The dotMobi initiative is backed by a consortium that includes Microsoft, Nokia and Vodafone.

For more on the controversial new domain name:
- see this article [4] from The Financial Times