Question and Answer: Dot .QA sales on Sedo are not allowed

A year ago, we reported the opening of the Qatari ccTLD, .QA to the general public, which was rolled out as a “Question & Answer” vanity namespace.

There was a catch, however, and we pointed that out with plenty of emphasis: .QA domains cannot be resold.

Some did not listen, and ended up registering dozens of .QA domains, with the intention to resell. Almost 400 of those .QA domains are now listed for sale on Sedo, some for thousands of dollars.

Recently, Mike at DomainAnimal.com made a post about a small portfolio of .QA domains being offered on LinkedIn for thousands of dollars a piece. Mike pointed out our article from last year, and the fact that the Qatari policy did not change in the interim.

Naturally, Mike’s skepticism was met with a reaction by the seller, who was adamant about the validity of the .QA portfolio sale. The seller claimed that his Registrar, Marcaria, saw no obstacles in transferring .QA domains for sale.

Because we don’t like half-baked answers, we contacted the Qatar Domains Registry directly. The results can be seen below:

• Q: Are registrants of .QA domains allowed to sell them?
  A: “[…] the policy is still in effect and it’s not allowed to sell .QA domains. Please note that clause 3.3. of our ‘Domain Name Transfer Policy – Change of Registrant’ states that “Domain Names subject to Eligibility Requirements should not be Registered to be sold to another party for commercial gain”. Although the policy is specific to domains with eligibility requirements the Registry in general is not allowing the practice of domains to be sold for reasons outside of the ones mentioned in the policies.”
• Q: Are those sales of .QA domains on Sedo permitted?
  A: “The sales on .QA domains on Sedo are not permitted.”

In other words, those who ignored our warning can now decide whether to drop or develop their .QA domain names, but they should forget about reselling them.

If you are being offered a .QA domain for sale, be advised that by violating the registrant agreement, you might end up losing both your money and the domain.

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