I own quite a few domains (about 10) but I have never received any paperwork to show I own them from the registrar. I have paid for them all and have the credit card receipts etc to prove it and my name comes up in a whois search but I am curious around the legal position.

It has become important in the last few days as I am about to end a business relationship with one of the hosts I use at the moment who I also registered the domain with.

Who actually owns the domain? Me (who paid for it) or the hosting company? If it is me I assume I should have received some form of paperwork, and, bearing in mind I havent, what can I do?

To complicate matters further I am in the UK and the host (and other companies who I registered domains with) are all in the US!!

TIA

Jason

Basically if you come up in a WHOIS search of the domain as the owner or registrant, you are legally the owner of the domain name.

In the old days NetSol used to send a paper receipt for your domain names, now it's all on the whois.

Ahh, I remember the good old days... I still keep half a dozen NetSol paper receipts in a box. Maybe they'll gain value over time. :)

Seriously though, the old days weren't all that fun. Domains cost $35, compared to about 10 bucks now.

Yup, $35.00 a year two years in advance......ouch!

Before taxes were dropped on them, they were $100 for 2 years.

The domain belongs to whoever the Administrative contact is.

But I've still seen particularly sleezy web hosting companies basically steal their client's web domain.

Had one client who ended up having to register the .net version of their name because their host (when the client registered/paid for the domain) put THEMSELF as the Administrative contact and then would not release the domain to my (new) client (their old client). I hated it, we faxed NetSol, called 'em, to no avail. So they went from a .com to a .net and life went on.

Jason, how about transferring your domain to a domain registrar? say, dotster.com? This way, you can securely administer your domain.

Dixiesys, are you sure? I don't know of any registrar that states that the administrative contact is the legal owner. Usually it is the owner/registrant entry that is the legal owner. The contacts are totally seperate entities and usually are only contacts.

Originally posted by bitserve
Dixiesys, are you sure? I don't know of any registrar that states that the administrative contact is the legal owner. Usually it is the owner/registrant entry that is the legal owner. The contacts are totally seperate entities and usually are only contacts.

Maybe I meant "registrant", this was with NetSol, and the hosting company had themselves as registrant even though their client paid the registration costs of the domain! Looking at the whois info at NetSol I'm sure "registrant" is the word I should have used.