Are you the legal owner of your domain?

You’ve got the perfect domain name and you’ve got a registrar to register the domain name. You register yourself or your business as the registrant, administrative contact and the technical contact. You are now the proud legal owner of your domain name (assuming you are not infringing on another’s trademark). It’s that simple.

How does it work when you have your web designer or other person register your domain name? An honest designer will register the domain under “your” name as well as possibly the administrative contact and most often will list their name as the technical contact.Those less scrupulous will enter their name as the registrant attesting that they are the legal owner. This happens more often than not. I have spoke with many a business who have tried to change designers or web hosts only to find out that they are not the legal owner of the domain in the eyes of the registrar.

What to do now? About the only thing you can do is contact the registrant as it is listed in the whois directory. Politely ask for the return of your domain name. If that does not work then you must prove you are the legal owner of the domain name to the registrar.

Registrars will not change registrant information without a court order or in some cases from direction of WIPO – World Intellectual Property Organization.

The moral of the story is to trust without a doubt the person who is doing the registration on your behalf and then verify through Whois OR simply register the name yourself. It’s not hard… <smile>

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