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The Background
With the continuing rapid growth of Internet based business, it is critical that organisations of all sizes know who owns their domain name, or names, and are happy with the position.
As the use of Internet services has grown, organisations have moved online in a number of ways. Some have used in-house facilities, some the services of a web design company while for others their venture online may have been with the help of an enthusiastic relative or friend.
The first online presence for some businesses has even been the output from a school project!
With these different routes to an online presence, the process of registering domain names may have resulted in their legal ownership being assigned properly to the businesses or their owners.
However, in some cases, it may have been the person who registered the domain who ended up as the legal owner.
In some cases a substantial investment in an online presence may be based on a name owed by someone who no longer has any connection or contact with the business.
Even worse, it could be owned by someone now working for a competitor!
Do you know who owns your domain name?
Checking Ownership
For domains ending in .uk, you can check on ownership by visiting the web site of Nominet, the UK name registrar, at http://www.nominet.org.uk and entering the name in the “WHOIS” form – NB: NOT the Search form on the top right.
On the information returned, the legal owner of the domain is display against the Registrant. Do you know the person or organisation listed as the registrant for your domain? Do you trust them with the ownership and management of the domain name you’re using?
As owners they are able to use the name in whatever way they wish. They could even sell the name to a competitor.
For a .com or .net name, checking ownership is slightly different.
Firstly, go to http://www.verisigninc.com/whois and find the registrar of the name. Then go to the registrar’s web site and check the registrant there.
Domain Name Transfers
If you don’t own your domain name a process can be used to transfer legal ownership, if the current owner is agreeable. The process for transferring .uk names is outlined on the Nominet Site and can be completed quickly and easily with an admin charge of £10.00+VAT.
Ownership of other types of names can be transferred using the processes defined by the relevant naming registrars.
Names in Dispute
If you want to transfer ownership of what you see as your name, but the current owner will not agree to this, a dispute over ownership arises. Nominet offer the Dispute Resolution Service (DRS) for domain names in this situation.
Firstly, Nominet will try to mediate to resolve the dispute. If this is unsuccessful the complainant has the option to have an independent expert appointed, for which fees are payable.
Different processes apply to other types of domain names – e.g. .com and .net are covered by the Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policies outlined at ICANN.
A domain name dispute is something you really don’t need!
To Summarize…
Find out who actually owns your domain names.
If this isn’t you or your business think seriously about getting them transferred, avoiding a dispute if at all possible!