dotMobi's Compliance Program - Stand By

With the summer now behind us -- and did it ever really arrive in Ireland? -- we are knuckling down to attack the heap of significant projects that will take us to the end of the year and beyond.

Compliance has always been a hot topic for followers of dotMobi and one which continues to attract a lot of attention and questions. Compliance comes in two forms: Premium Name Compliance and General Compliance, and it's important that the distinction is clearly made between these two separate projects.

General Compliance involves some basic content formatting requirements -- such as no frames, mandatory use of XHTML and use of a second level landing (no "www") -- as set out in the dotMobi Style Guide and incorporated into every domain registration Agreement with .mobi registrars. When an end-user chooses to activate his .mobi domain name and put up some sort of content -- which is not in itself a requirement -- that content, whether it's a parking page or a full-blown site, should adhere to the Style Guide.

Premium Name Compliance deals with the specific content development requirements set out in the dotMobi End User Agreement to which bidders in any of the dotMobi-Sedo, Go Daddy or T.R.A.F.F.I.C. auctions held from September 2007 onwards would have agreed. This Agreement allowed for a dotMobi-compliant parking page during the first six months after domain transfer with a full and relevant web site to be up and running thereafter. Obviously, the content must comply to the Style Guide rules, and it is here that the two compliance projects cross.

An additional requirement arising out of the dotMobi End-User Agreement is that in the event of a re-sale -- which in itself is not prohibited -- the Registrant must notify dotMobi and must ensure that the new buyer is made aware of the content obligations attached to the name. Essentially, the content obligations travel with the Premium Name and the clock will not re-start for the new buyer.

dotMobi will be rolling out its Premium Name Compliance Program during the early part of September, although we have been manually monitoring each domain over the last number of months. We have received substantial feedback from the market that the six-month development timeframe was too short a window, particularly for those that bought a number of names in the auctions or for large corporations that tend to move slowly. In light of that, the clock will be re-set and Registrants will be notified of a new development deadline. Since there are different auctions involved with different dates, the compliance program will run in different cycles.

If you are a Registrant of any of the associated Premium Names, you will hear from us in due course. It is worth noting that failure to comply with the End-User Agreement amounts to breach and, per the Agreement, dotMobi reserves the right to take back the Premium Name and not return the funds.

Jumping back to General Compliance, dotMobi is also looking at that project with its own associated process issues. We take it no less seriously and we will be announcing further details about that program towards the end of September.

For queries on either compliance program, please send them to compliance@mtld.mobi.