Jul
17
Written by:
Kevin Jones
7/17/2008 2:04 PM
Many business owners hire a web developer, or team of developers, to setup their web site. Setup may include the actual creation of the hosting account, web site design, e-mail, databases, domain registration, etc… all under the developer’s name / info. What does this mean for you though in the long run? Yes, at first it appears easier to outsource and hire someone to perform the “work” for your online business, but business relationships do not always last.
We all know from some prior experience in life that when we take the “easier” road, it may become a long treacherous decent off the side of a mountain. Ok, so maybe a bit dramatic, but let’s apply this to the scenario below:
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You are a business owner and you have a developer setup your domain registration and hosting account. At some point you and the developer do not see eye to eye anymore, rather it be due to price, availability, personal reasons, etc. At this time, the developer has ceased all communication with you, and your hosting account is coming up for renewal. Your web site is now in danger of being offline due to overdue / non-payment of the renewal invoice.
You then decide to call the hosting company, and ask to have the account information changed so that you can pay the bill. Due to security and privacy reasons, you would have to provide some proof of ownership of the hosting account, before you would be allowed to take any action or given access to get your site back online.
This is when it dawns on you. You do not have any of the login credentials, your name is not on the domain registration or the hosting account, and your e-mail address is no where to be found on the account. You will then get an explanation that indicates that further transactions can only be made with the “account owner”. What do you do!?! You have no access to the account, and the only person that does, you have lost contact with.
Your options at this point in the situation would be to:
1. Call the developer / ex-employee and beg for the login credentials and/or permission to have the contact information changed on the account.
2. File a dispute with ICANN over the domain ownership, and have to prove that you are the legal business owner. After this in depth process is done, and you win the dispute, you will regain ownership of the domain. But, this still does not give you ownership of the web site content (i.e. files / pages / images / databases / etc.), created by the developer. Now you have a domain, but will have to hire a new developer to re-build your site. You will also have to obtain a new hosting account (hopefully under your name this time).
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This is just one of many scenarios that could possibly happen to you, if you do not have the necessary rights to your domain registration and web hosting account. My point is to educate and prepare new (and existing) web hosting customers to possible issues that could result from making wrong decisions early in the process of getting your business online. If you own the company, make sure that you are also listed as the owner of both the domain registration and web hosting account, as the “admin” contact for both
Take the time to make sure that you have chosen proper contact information so that the correct person is always in control. This will help ensure a trouble-free hosting experience. And best of all… it prevents us from being drawn into the middle of a dispute between you and your former web developer / ex-employee 
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