A few years ago, I signed up for Mobility.mobi, the leading .Mobi domain name discussion forum. Yesterday afternoon, Andres Kello, the forum founder and owner, issued a call to action to forum members and premium .Mobi domain owners.
Kello is looking to create a private Roundtable to discuss ways to accomplish one of two goals “: 1) getting this extension back on track, or 2) getting our investment back.” .Mobi domain owners are invited to participate and can show their interest in a thread Kello started on his forum.
With his permission, the entire email is posted below. (update, Kello asked me to post the contents of the thread instead). For full disclosure, I do not own any .mobi domain names.
Dear .mobi domain owners,
For over 5 years, the .mobi community has given mTLD / dotMobi the benefit of the doubt, watching in awkward silence as the company tore off — one-by-one — everything that made this extension unique, different, and exciting.
While the Mobility.mobi community was volunteering both its time and money to run an Anti-Cybersquatting Initiative, launch the Why.mobi Awareness Campaign, join the mTLD Policy Advisory Board, and share our views and concerns about .mobi at the company’s request (among many other things), mTLD were busyeliminating the Trustmark that made .mobi special, presenting one-way Webinars with empty words to appease the masses, telling us one story about their finances when their balance sheet told another, providing false statements regarding .mobi on their site, fabricating outright false forward-looking statements to its investor base, and getting side-tracked with conflicting interests, among other things, all of which have negatively impacted our investment decisions.
(I strongly recommend everyone carefully read through all the Sticky threads in the mTLD Registry / dotMobi Company, the Private Discussion, and the .mobi News and Discussion section for more information, as a lot of this has already been discussed in great detail.)
mTLD have increasingly shown an apathy and callous indifference towards the extension that so many of us spent so much time and money trying to build, that it is time we — the .mobi community — took matters into our own hands.
If we don’t save .mobi, no one else will. And if the company isn’t going to make any efforts to commit to their promises — both implied and specific — then we all deserve to get our investments back.
As a result, we are creating a new Roundtable for all disenfranchised .mobi domain owners dedicated to either of those goals: 1) getting this extension back on track, or 2) getting our investment back. Which of those it will ultimately be will depend solely on mTLD.
We’ve waited far too long. We’ve pardoned far too much. mTLD have taken advantage of both to become complacent and apathetic. What they fail to realize is that we’ve got nothing left to lose.
One way or another, things are going to change.
So if you are a .mobi domain owner and feel mTLD / dotMobi are leading this extension irresponsibly down a path to obscurity and want to change things, then please post here. There will be no discussions here, the purpose of this thread is simply to request membership to the Roundtable. Also, no PM’s please, this is not the time to be private about your disapproval, discontentment, and dissatisfaction. This is time to speak up.
One week from now, I will invite everyone who has requested membership in this thread to the private Roundtable on Mobility to discuss our next step.
Please spread the word.
Sincerely,
Andres Kello
Mobility.mobi, Owner