Within the past week I've had two separate businesses contact me with concerns regarding their current hosting and domain set up. Both were independent businesses with nothing in common and both had arrangements with seperate design companies. Their problems, however, were completely identical.
It seems that some businesses are still leaving the registering of the domains up to the design companies allowing the design companies to register the domains under their names. The result? The businesses are at the mercy of the company, this is particularly true with .com addresses.
So how does this work? Lets say I register www.TheBigHotel.com on behalf of a business called The Big Hotel. All is hunky dory with us. I invoice them each month for services but after 6 months, our relationship turns sour. I can simply divert the domain to a rival hotel or worse. They have absolutely no come back. Legal action would be long and drawn out and near impossible to win.
This may sound a bit extreme, but I have seen it happen first hand to one business and it seems there is potential for it to happen more often.
As a home owner, there is no way you would give the keys and the deeds of your house to the plumber just because he does work on a regular basis yet what I've outlined above seems to be happening on a regular basis.
Domains should be registered in the names of the owner only, no need for the administrator, tech guy or your granny to be named as part of the registration.
To find out who owns your domain, go to .ie domain lookup or here for all other domains.
Don't say I didn't warn you!
Eric Hennelly Flanagan, Six Degrees
Six Degrees is a marketing agency based in Galway, Ireland. It offers a full range of social media and marketing services tailored to suit the requirements of the client. We not only develop strategies to enhance and develop brands, but offer continued support and advice to maintain the momentum of any brand building exercise. Our focus is to deliver the maximum results to each of our clients, with a friendly personal service.
