Reserving 2012-01-12 (January 12, 2012)
Edit: Whoops, killed by the post above me. January 12 is my new guess.
AFAIK,
1/2/2012 is the 2nd of January, but
1.2.2012 is the 1st of February.
Can you bring an example of a country, where 1/2/2012 means the 1st of February?
1/2/2012 is 2 January in the United States and 1 February in Europe, Latin America, Middle East, though everyone should be confused.
1.2.2012 would be 1 February most everywhere, though North Americans might be confused.
I have never come across mm.dd.yyyy anywhere in the world. Generally it is only the United States (and its minor influence in Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and Canada) that uses a dyslexic (mixed endian) system, where the /-slash is near universally used.
Europe, Mid East, Latin America and some of Asia use little endian, with just about any delimiter (., /, -, 年, 月) though big endian is more common in Asia. Only a four digit year would clarify the order.
I've seen some mixed delimiters, such as 22/12-2011, in Germany and nordic countries, or roman numeral months in central Europe, but it is always little endian, unless the delimiter glyph represent the month, year, such as in Chinese 2011年12月22日.
Generally, the / is completely ambiguous and should be avoided. Both . and - denote little endian or big endian and should contain a four digit year. I personally suggest big endian, four digit year, and abbreviated month for least ambiguity and maximum clarity, such as 2011-DEC-22.
xx/xx/xxxx is DD/MM/YYYY format in Canada, though generally common usage is YYYY-MM-DD or MONTH DD, YYYY here. This is especially true when the xx/xx/xxxx format isn't obvious, because of US influence. 01/02/2011 is February 1 here though, and it can get confusing if you even get close to the states.
Unfortunately, there is also another very confusing format that is used by lazier people: DD/MM/YY (05/12/11 for example) and YY/DD/MM (11/05/12). Things can get very confusing if YY/MM/DD (rare - I haven't seen this) or MM/DD/YY (only in the US AFAIK) get mixed in.
These so-called "lazy date formats" primarily use slashes, which I perceive as being introduced from the states - even though our formats are incompatible with theirs.
Dates are confusing!
(on another note, I only realized the MM/DD/YYYY format existed a few years ago. That means I seem to meet the definition of the stereotypical ignorant American.)