Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Domain Names : Domain name being held. What to do?

[zilenairam]

A firend of mine, who isn't very knowledgable about these things, had his website registered with his host for "free". Dumb idea. He knows that now.

His website got some major press attention and since he was on a shared server it got hammered. His site was pulled. He's learning the hard way.

It took 24 hours but the host agreed to put him on a dedicated server. He paid the money for the dedicated server and hasn't heard from them since. The only phone number they have is, of course, disconnected.

Also, sometime in the last 24 hours the webhost went and erased ALL of the whois information for his domain. All of the entries now read '--' and the domain is registrar locked.

He was approached by a reputable organization to help get his site back online...but they are stuck, too, without the domain.

The old host is totally non-responsive now, and the fact that they've changed the domain contact info is really odd.

have any of you seen this happen before? Will he ba able to get the domain back?

[frattay22]

Well it all depends what the TOS says for them registering the domain names for "free" with hosting. So you can't find any contact numbers any where from that company? List it here or you can pm me and I will look into it. Who is the REAL "registar" who was the reseller etc.. more info is needed.

Regards

[Dan541]

care to tell us who the webhost is and wich domain is being held?

If we know this information we can find the ISP for that webhost.

[DevilDog]

I think if he has some good records to prove that he established a reputation for the name (or even goes ahead and trademarks it based on the press he got) he may have a good chance in Court getting it back even if the TOS say that the web host gets to keep the name. I might be completely wrong but I do know that sometimes trademarks trump domain ownership if it can be proven. He might need to talk to a lawyer who specializes in this stuff.

[Dave Zan]

Originally posted by DevilDog
I think if he has some good records to prove that he established a reputation for the name (or even goes ahead and trademarks it based on the press he got) he may have a good chance in Court getting it back even if the TOS say that the web host gets to keep the name. I might be completely wrong but I do know that sometimes trademarks trump domain ownership if it can be proven. He might need to talk to a lawyer who specializes in this stuff.

That can help. But: 1) he's gotta have the time and money to be
able to handle this, and 2) he's gotta prove he has stronger legal
rights to the name, assuming the domain's registered to the host.

How I'd love to see someone challenge a registrar's one-sided
TOS and legally force them to change it. That'll be the day.