Enforce Compliance Rules for Premium Domains (Eventually) — dotMobi to
dotMobi states it will start to enforce guidelines for domains won at auction.
In June I wrote a second article regarding premium dotMobi domain names that were won at auctions at Sedo. At the time, not a single domain won at the first Sedo auction was in compliance. Compliance basically requires a dotMobi compatible parking page followed by a mobile web site within 6 months. Although it’s not surprising that few of the domains had real web sites within 6 months, it was shameful that few even had .mobi parking pages.
dotMobi representatives stated they were working on a compliance program, and the registry is now rolling it out. Slowly. On its blog it stated it will start the compliance program in September (one year following the initial auction) and will restart the clock. It may also give more than 6 months lead time to develop the sites, meaning that auction winners from the first auction will have at least 18 months to create a functioning web site.
The compliance rules apply to all domains auctioned off by the registry through Sedo, Moniker’s TRAFFIC auctions, and GoDaddy. It also applies to any domain that was originally auctioned at one of these events and later traded hands. In other words, if you bought a domain from someone who bought it at one of these events you are beholden to the original terms.
Although mandatory development of sites that were mostly purchased for investment may sound like a pain, it will increase the value of all .mobi domain holders’ portfolios when these hundreds of premium domains are active on the mobile web.
