Introduced | 2005 |
---|---|
TLD type | Generic top-level domain |
Status | Active |
Registry | dotMobi (subsidiary of Afilias) |
Sponsor | None |
Intended use | Mobile content providers |
Actual use | Mobile products and services websites |
Registration restrictions | None. Adherence to mobile-first style guidelines recommended. |
Structure | Registrations are conducted at second level. |
Documents | ICANN Registry Agreement |
Dispute policies | UDRP |
DNSSEC | Yes |
Registry website | dotMobi.mobi |
The domain name mobi is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. Its name is derived from the adjective mobile.
The domain was approved by ICANN on 11 July 2005, and is managed by the mTLD global registry. It was originally financially backed and sponsored by Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung, Ericsson, Vodafone, T-Mobile, Telefónica Móviles, Telecom Italia Mobile, Orascom Telecom, GSM Association, Hutchison Whampoa, Syniverse Technologies, and Visa, with an executive from each company serving on mTLD's board of directors. [1] In February 2010, Afilias acquired mTLD Top-Level Domain Ltd. (known publicly as "dotMobi"). [2] In March 2017, .mobi became an unsponsored generic top-level domain, using the same terms offered to new gTLDs. [3]
DotMobi domain names have been available for registration by the public since 26 September 2006.
dotMobi engaged with the W3C Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) to help formulate the MWI Best Practices for mobile content. The practices outlined a number of ways to achieve good user experiences on mobile Web-enabled devices, and recognized several methods of implementing these practices.
mTLD has released a free testing tool called Ready.mobi (later mobiForge) to analyze the mobile readiness of websites. It does a free page analysis and gives a .mobi Ready score from 1 to 5. This report tests the mobile-readiness of the site using dotMobi's recommended best practices.
dotMobi does not itself mandate any particular technology, but does recommends that .mobi sites produce user experiences consistent with their guidelines and specifically optimized for mobile phones.
"mobiForge" is a mobile development and design resource site run dotMobi. mobiForge functions both as a platform to announce product updates to the developer community and discussion forums for each of dotMobi's products and services. mobiForge was launched in November 2006 as dev.mobi. It was announced at the Mobile 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, along with the launch of ready.mobi. dev.mobi underwent a major redesign in September 2008 and was rebranded as mobiForge and moved to mobiForge.com
Originally dotMobi focused on promoting the creation of two separate device-dependent World Wide Webs, one desktop-based and the other mobile-based. Because of this, Tim-Berners Lee brought up concerns of excess Internet content redundancy. [4]
Providing content tailored to particular devices can be done by other means than a specific TLD, such as using hostnames within an existing domain, HTTP content negotiation, cascading style sheets, or other forms of adaptation. The popularization of responsive web design has caused the domain name to be relocated for use on mobile services and mobile apps websites.
A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in lower levels, it is the last part of the domain name, that is, the last non empty label of a fully qualified domain name. For example, in the domain name www.example.com, the top-level domain is .com. Responsibility for management of most top-level domains is delegated to specific organizations by the ICANN, an Internet multi-stakeholder community, which operates the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and is in charge of maintaining the DNS root zone.
In the Internet, a domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As of December 2023, 359.8 million domain names had been registered. Domain names are used in various networking contexts and for application-specific naming and addressing purposes. In general, a domain name identifies a network domain or an Internet Protocol (IP) resource, such as a personal computer used to access the Internet, or a server computer.
.info is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. The name is derived from information, although registration requirements do not prescribe any particular purpose.
An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that contains at least one label displayed in software applications, in whole or in part, in non-Latin script or alphabet or in the Latin alphabet-based characters with diacritics or ligatures. These writing systems are encoded by computers in multibyte Unicode. Internationalized domain names are stored in the Domain Name System (DNS) as ASCII strings using Punycode transcription.
.xxx is a sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) intended as a voluntary option for pornographic sites on the Internet. The sponsoring organization is the International Foundation for Online Responsibility (IFFOR). The registry is operated by ICM Registry LLC. The ICANN Board voted to approve the sTLD on 18 March 2011. It went into operation on 15 April 2011.
Domain name speculation, popular as domaining in professional jargon, is the practice of identifying and registering or acquiring generic Internet domain names as an investment with the intent of selling them later for a profit.
Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last level of every fully qualified domain name. They are called generic for historical reasons; initially, they were contrasted with country-specific TLDs in RFC 920.
Afilias, Inc. was a US corporation that was the registry operator of the .info, .mobi and .pro top-level domain, service provider for registry operators of .org, .ngo, .lgbt, .asia, .aero, and a provider of domain name registry services for countries around the world, including .MN (Mongolia), .AG, .BM (Bermuda), .BZ (Belize), .AC, .GI (Gibraltar), .IO .ME (Montenegro), .PR, .SC, .SH, .VC, and .AU (Australia). Afilias also provided ancillary support to other domains, including .SG (Singapore), .LA (Laos), and .HN (Honduras). It was merged into Identity Digital in 2022.
The domain name .tel is a top-level domain (TLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. It was approved by ICANN as a sponsored top-level domain, and is operated by Telnic. Telnic announced in January 2011 that over 300,000 domains had been registered since the start of general availability on 24 March 2009. A substantial drop of mostly IDN .tel's occurred at the beginning of 2014. The total number of registered websites under .tel as of 9 October 2023 is approximately 43,227.
.web is a proposed top-level domain (TLD) that was created and assigned by an auction process to several bidding companies. It was awarded to Nu Dot Co LLC, which is primarily funded by Verisign.
The mobile web comprises mobile browser-based World Wide Web services accessed from handheld mobile devices, such as smartphones or feature phones, through a mobile or other wireless network.
.me is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Montenegro.
The Domain Name System of the Internet consists of a set of top-level domains that constitute the root domain of the hierarchical name space and database. In the growth of the Internet, it became desirable to expand the initial set of six generic top-level domains in 1984. As a result, new top-level domain names have been proposed for implementation by ICANN. Such proposals included a variety of models ranging from adoption of policies for unrestricted gTLDs that could be registered by anyone for any purpose, to chartered gTLDs for specialized uses by specialized organizations. In October 2000, ICANN published a list of proposals for top-level domain strings it had received.
.music is a community-based top-level domain name (TLD) operated for the benefit of the global music community. It was one of the most highly contested new gTLDs, with eight applicants in contention.
A landrush period is the time during which domain names are available for registration, usually to a closed group, to entities that do not own a trademark in the name they wish to register, for example generic terms like loan or car, and thus would not qualify for registration during the sunrise period. Orders may or may not be treated on a first-come-first-served basis. This period follows the sunrise period just after the launch of a new top-level domain or second-level domain during which, for example, owners of trademarks may register a domain name containing the owned mark, but a landrush period precedes a period of general availability, when any qualifying entity can register any name on a first come first-served basis.
Public Interest Registry is a not-for-profit based in Reston, Virginia, created by the Internet Society in 2002 to manage the .ORG top-level domain. It took over operation of .ORG in January 2003 and launched the .NGO and .ONG top-level domains in March 2015.
Donuts Inc. was a domain name registrar and registry providing paid domain names under 270 new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), as made possible by ICANN's gTLD expansion program, as well as 173 other TLDs including .au (ccTLD) and .org, through its own registry status and contracts between its subsidiaries and other registries.
.app is a gTLD in ICANN's New gTLD Program. Google purchased the gTLD in an ICANN Auction of Last Resort in February 2015.
Universal Acceptance (UA) is a term coined by Ram Mohan to represent the principle that every top-level domain (TLD) should function within all applications regardless of script, number of characters, or how new it is.