Helping out a friend - Web designer stole their domain.

[Bryony84]

I'm helping out a friend at the moment who set up a company a couple of years ago. She paid a web designer way over the odds for a website at the time, and they have had all sorts of problems with him.

Eventually I will be redoing the site for her to encorporate her new ideas, but her biggest problem at the moment is that the webdesigner has transferred her domain into his name (I've double checked the WHOIS details). She pays for the domain every year so legally, he should have no ground to contest transferring it back to her name, but he has been very hard to deal with in the past.

Just wondering if anyone has any advice I can pass on.

[worlddom]

If attempts to request a transfer directly fail and there is evidence of the domain registration and renewals then the next step maybe to approach Nominet regarding the matter. They have a Dispute Resolution Service which is free to engage... just requires a bit of form filling.

[LASS]

how did he change it into his name in the first place?

[richardmk]

Does your friend have access to either the online Nominet account that the domain name is held in, if it is a .co.uk name, or a login to the registrar's site if it is a .com name?

They may be able to change the registrant if they have the username and password to these accounts.

[computerservices]

Who does your friend pay to?

The designer or the registrar?

If she pays the registrar surely she should be able to contact them and request details to login to her account if she provides them proof of ID/payment and then initiate a transfer away from there?

If she pays the designer and it's a .co.uk domain name then Nominet is your only approach.

Dispute Resolution Service (DRS) // Nominet
Telephone: +44(0)1865 332211

[Bryony84]

she pays the designer sadly, I've given her the nominet advice!

Last time she asked him nicely to transfer it back into her name he took down her whole website!

[The Dispute Resolver]

Firstly, a point of detail for everyone, Nominet is the service to go to if it is a .co.uk (or other.*.uk )but WIPO in Geneva if its a .com or other top level.

But before you do that (and there is a charge by both) you need to check the contract your client had with the previous designer. This may include a term that states that he be the registrant (bad term as it is) or otherwise he may lay claim to the intellectual property rights in the design or indeed the name. Although not applicable here (as you say she paid ) the designer may have a right to retain registration if payment has not yet been paid in full.

The problem here is that, whilst this can be attacked, the UDRP procedure (operated by Nominet and WIPO ) defer to the courts so you may waste your time with them if the designer has some legal right to retain the registration. After all two parties can contract to whatever they like. But my guess is this is unlikely.

One other point, neither Nominet or WIPO in general can order the losing party to pay the other party' s costs (which is why there is such a massive incidence of people typo-squatting and earning affiliation fees until found out safe in the knowledge that they will not have to pay costs). In an 'open and shut' case it may be better to threaten court proceedings (injunction - fairly speedy) since the risk of paying your legal costs (plus a court order against them) may encourage a speedy release of the domain.