Getting our .com back

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#660227 23-Jul-2012 09:08

Ah ok I get it now. It's registered as the customers name, by the web developer. That should be pretty easy to prove.

A lawsuit of theft by an employee might scare the crap out of them, or even a letter from an attorney with the threat of that. I can recommend a good patent and trademark attorney in the UK who's not awfully priced (not cheap though), send me a message if you want their details. Figure around GBP200-400 to have a letter sent to her from the attorney, though much more if it goes to court.

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#660238 23-Jul-2012 09:38

Does she have the old emails/documents with the original invoices? Go back to those and see what they state. If it is clear that they were to purchase on her behalf then you have a good case to claim it back. If they do not then he may well be the entiltiled owner!

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#660242 23-Jul-2012 09:46

.com are tricky - it's on a first come, first served basis and unless you have a strong trademark case and can prove someone is a cyber squatter, better say goodbye and build up on an alternate domain.

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#660285 23-Jul-2012 11:26

Given it appears it may be a hard road to get proper ownership of 'her' domain then this may require some lateral thinking.
Is there any opportunity for your client to register a domain the original developer may trade for? (wife, childs, current UK employers name)

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#660297 23-Jul-2012 11:40

timmmay: So your developer registered it for you, but the domain name is the same as her name? So if she was Mary Smith the domains are marysmith.com and marysmith.co.nz? If it is I can't see any court making her give it up. If it was your name or your business name and they've effectively stolen from you that would be different.

This whole thread is a little confusing.

You're on the right track.

The OP has a client who has marysmith.com, but the client's designer registered it in his own name, making him the legal owner of the domain, even though he's registered it for Mary Smith.

The OP is asking how to legally force the designer to return full ownership of the domain to Mary Smith so that Mary can move away from the designer who is charging high fees.

timmmay

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#660298 23-Jul-2012 11:45

I do think a letter from a UK based attorney will get action faster than almost anything else. People don't like lawsuits, especially when what they've done could be called extortion or theft.

Was there a contract with the web designer that could be used to support any claim?

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#660300 23-Jul-2012 11:48

I need to discuss the situation with the client and find out what she wants to do. The concern is that if he gets pissy with her, he could forward that domain anywhere (porn site or another person in her profession or something) which wouldn't be good.

Once we go down the path of forcing the domain, we need to be sure we can get it I guess.

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#660301 23-Jul-2012 11:50

My parents-in-law have a small web site, hosted with a company that like many others provide those "packages".

Basically when they were setting up the site they asked for the UDAI so they could "change the DNS records".

If you don't know, in New Zealand the UDAI is a code used to transfer domain ownership. It's not needed anywhere to "change the DNS records" and only used when someone sells the domain to another entity, giving up ownership.

I am the holder of the password to their domain management (although registered under their names) and would never pass this kind of information on to any developer. I asked for what DNS changes they needed and that was the end of the story.

Had they forced even a little bit I'd ask my parents-in-law to terminate the contract.

People should never give this kind of information to anyone else.

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#660302 23-Jul-2012 11:53

networkn: I need to discuss the situation with the client and find out what she wants to do. The concern is that if he gets pissy with her, he could forward that domain anywhere (porn site or another person in her profession or something) which wouldn't be good.

Once we go down the path of forcing the domain, we need to be sure we can get it I guess.

Crap like this happens. The best way out is to make a new domain with good search ranking. If he does redirect to a porn site or whatever, with time it will drop from search anyway.

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#660304 23-Jul-2012 11:53

Can you give us some background about the industry, the number of people who use the website, or what it's for, without giving away who it is?

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#660305 23-Jul-2012 11:56

We register domains for our clients all the time. The only details which go back to us are email address so that UDAI's and SSL Certificate emails are received by us. Client has a login if they want it to manage their own DNS. It's a pretty grim situation all in all. At the end of the day, I don't really want to share any additional details at this stage. I'll have a chat to the client and let you guys know the outcome.

Thanks for the advice!

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Zeon

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#660315 23-Jul-2012 12:14

freitasm: .com are tricky - it's on a first come, first served basis and unless you have a strong trademark case and can prove someone is a cyber squatter, better say goodbye and build up on an alternate domain.

That's not true - you can get a court to make a ruling or even the threat of one can be enough to get them to give it back.

Networkn - after this is over I suggest you name the developer involved.

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#660319 23-Jul-2012 12:25

Zeon:
freitasm: .com are tricky - it's on a first come, first served basis and unless you have a strong trademark case and can prove someone is a cyber squatter, better say goodbye and build up on an alternate domain.

That's not true - you can get a court to make a ruling or even the threat of one can be enough to get them to give it back.

You can get a court, which will consume time and money (or more specifically money and money). The registrar doesn't have to hand a domain to you just because it uses your name.

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#660356 23-Jul-2012 13:06

By any chance is she a real estate agent?

Just guessing.

If the developer wont play nicely, just start using the .co.nz one (or get a .co). It will end up a useless domain name to the developer who will eventually let it lapse and you can pick it up.

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#660373 23-Jul-2012 13:56

networkn: I need to discuss the situation with the client and find out what she wants to do. The concern is that if he gets pissy with her, he could forward that domain anywhere (porn site or another person in her profession or something) which wouldn't be good.

Once we go down the path of forcing the domain, we need to be sure we can get it I guess.

I do recall reading about this sort of problem before in NZ and it made it into the papers. Although in that case I think the domain was more generic.

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