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.

mTLD has released a free testing tool called Ready.mobi (later mobiForge) to analyze the mobile readiness of websites.

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.

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.