dotMobi says it will start to enforce guidelines for domains won at auction.
In June I wrote a second article about 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 said they were working on a compliance program, and the registry is now rolling it out. Slowly. On its blog it said it will start the compliance program in September (one year after 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.
Gary says
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.
I don’t need to add my own comments.. the above extract says enough..
Andrew says
Gary, make no mistake: enforcement of this provision is one of the most important initiatives for dotMobi over the next 12 months.
Steve M says
As I’ve said before, no one should believe in .mobi “enforcement” until they see it actually happening…and sticking (i.e. resales by the registry to others).
Really; their “threat” is nothing more than a paper tiger…which will blow over dead in the wind from the first hurricane of lawsuits filed within days of any attempt to “cancel” the registrations of higher (say, 25k+ or so) priced .mobi names.
Mark these words; if they attempt to grab such names from their current owners, the legal costs they’ll quickly be buried in will shove the registry into bankruptcy.
Then Bob Parsons can pick up the carcass for a song…dropping the unenforceable, “use it or lose it” conditions as he relaunches it.
Andrew says
Steve, not sure what you mean about Parsons. .mobi isn’t a GoDaddy thing. .Me is backed by GoDaddy.
Steve M says
Andrew, what I’m saying is that Bob; being the smart fellow and great opportunist that he is; would very likely love to have .mobi all to himself…if he was able to pick it up at some future date where dotMobi had gone under due to trying to enforce their “use it or lose it” condition.
Andrew says
Steve – OK, I misunderstood you.