How Safe is Your Domain Name?

By Heather Peel

Consider recent events in big business:

October 2000, Adobe.com temporarily lost control of their domain as someone hijacked the domain by initiating a "transfer" from Network Solutions to a Chinese registry.
]
Earlier in the year, Microsoft’s hotmail.com was released when they forgot to pay their bill!

Although you think these kinds of incidents would only happen in larger companies, similar problems can also affect ANY domain owner. There are many reasons why your domain could be in jeopardy.

Here is a checklist that all domain owners should review:

1. Is your company’s domain registered in your business name or an employee’s name?
   
   Most companies have a senior person in their organization register a domain name and think nothing more about it. All too often one of the following things will happen. The employee registers the company name in THEIR own name or has the company who handles the Web hosting register the name for them. What happens in either of these two cases is that the business is in jeopardy of a legal battle to get the domain back under their control should there be a falling out with the employee or the hosting company. (We have already seen several cases of this happening within our small group of about 200 clients.)
   
   
   
2. Is the domain registered with a reputable domain registrar?
   
   Don’t be fooled into thinking that a registrar is reputable just because they are big or well known. Ask around, and ask the registrar questions if something is not clearly defined on their Web site. Find out if they are easily accessible to answer questions promptly. Make sure that you in fact do own the domain name and are able to make quick modifications to it as you wish. You should be able to easily locate an area of their site that allows you to log in using a password provided at the time of registration to make changes to your domain information, including the opportunity to change nameservers as needed. There are places out there that will register your domain at a low cost, or even for free, but if you ever want to move it elsewhere, you may pay dearly.
   
   
3. Have you always kept your domain information current?
   
   This is probably the biggest problem. You may change Internet Service Providers without remembering to change your email address on file with the domain registrar. This has serious consequences if you forget your password or your domain comes up for renewal and you can’t be contacted to make payment on it. Delays in getting things straightened out may mean your site is down for a period of time. For example, .ca domain owners who do not have current email contact information listed on their domain registrations are likely going to lose their domains.
   
   
4. Is the person who is listed as your Administrative Contact able and available to make decisions about the domain on behalf of the company?
   
   When choosing an administrative contact for your domain, be sure that you choose someone who will act promptly and knowledgeably if they receive any correspondence regarding the domain name. Just because someone may be the president or other high-ranking person, does not mean he/she should act as the administrative contact. If he were the type of person who does not like getting emails, or does not regularly check his mail, it would be a good idea to set up the email address used for the domain registration to go to multiple recipients. Your ISP or hosting provider should be able to assist you with this.

In addition to problems with existing domain names, sometimes you can lose your domain before you even have registered it! If you are considering a domain name, our advice is to register the domain immediately rather than delaying. There are so many people registering domains that it is quite likely that someone else could register your domain while you are considering it.

In fact, it is possible that when you use a WHOIS lookup utility that information is being captured electronically and used by someone else if you do not follow through and register the domain you look up. One company that openly does this is The Big Whois at http://www.thebigwhois.com. They do not publish the lookup information until 24 hours later, however. We do not advocate using the WHOIS tool to find available domain names at all, since most WHOIS tools can be out of date by as much as 3 days. We suggest instead using a registrar that has a live lookup feature when placing orders. If they show the domain you are interested in is available, you are prompted to register it immediately.

Generally speaking, it is ALWAYS a good idea to register your domain through the company you wish to host your Web site. They are best able to help you if you have any difficulties or questions. They are also able to have your Web site up and running much quicker if they do not have to spend a lot of time helping you get your domain information changed in order for the domain to resolve to their servers.

Heather Peel is the owner of The Net Now (www.thenetnow.com) and has assisted hundreds of clients with their domain registrations over the past 3 years. The Net Now offers Web design, Web hosting and domain registration services, primarily to small businesses in Canada.

Published in Networking Today, December 2000.