by Matt McGee
One World Telecommunications
posted: November 29, 2005
Are you the master of your domain? Funny question
if you're a Seinfeld fan, but it's a serious
question for anyone doing business online.
I took a call not long ago from a local businessman
who is not a client of ours, but was looking for
any help he could get about his domain name. I'll
call him "Bob." His case was a sad,
and sadly common one: Bob and his web developer
had a dispute over money. The web developer took
Bob's web site down for a couple days. That's
bad enough, but here's worse: The web developer
also took ownership of Bob's domain. Permanently.
How? By simply changing the name of the domain
owner from Bob to himself, which he had authority
to do because the web developer listed himself,
not Bob, as the domain administrator when it was
registered. The domain registrar didn't even know
Bob existed. The domain was registered originally
with Bob's company name, but with the web developer
as the sole administrator -- giving the web developer
authority to make any changes he wanted to the
domain, including deleting Bob's company as the
owner, and replacing it with himself.
Could this happen to you? Sure, if you're not listed
as the owner and administrator of your domain.
Here's how to find out:
1. Do a WHOIS search on your domain name(s). There
are tons of places to do this. I'll suggest Network
Solutions, though I'd never suggest you actually
register a domain with them. Type in your domain
name -- just the whatever.com, skip the http and
the www stuff.
2. When you see your domain record, there are
several things to look for:
Registrant: This
is the legal owner of the domain. You should
be listed here, not your web developer and
not your web hosting company. Make sure your
company name and address is all correct.
Administrative Contact:
This is the person authorized to make any
changes to the domain record. Again, this
should be you or someone at your company --
not your web developer or web host. Make sure
the email address associated with the contact
person is correct. If it's not, contact the
domain registrar to get it changed.
Technical Contact:
This should be someone with your company,
or perhaps someone with your web hosting company.
When we register domains for our clients,
we list ourselves as the Tech Contact. We
conduct business on the up-and-up, so our
clients don't need to worry about this. But
if you don't completely trust the person or
company listed here, you should change it
(assuming you're the Administrative contact).
If someone else is listed as the Registrant and
Administrative Contact, you're in a pickle. The
domain belongs to that person, not you, and hopefully
you have a good relationship with that person
and can ask him/her to change the domain record.
If you're listed as one or the other, you should
be able to contact the domain registrar (scroll
down to where it says "Current Registrar")
to claim ownership of the domain, and get the
appropriate information changed.
When we speak with prospects about web hosting
and domain registration, we always tell them,
"Even if you don't use us, make sure that
whomever registers your domain lists you as the
owner and administrator." Hopefully, with
that kind of advice, you can avoid situations
like the one "Bob" found himself in.
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