Do we legally own our domain name?

The person who handles our website now has it listed under his name although we paid him. The website is our company%26#039;s name. We have also paid him for all his services i.e. developement, maintance, hosting, etc.

When we set this up we were not to web savy but now are. He is doing a poor job and may increase his monthly fee. How do we go about breaking ties with him and do we have legal grounds to the domain name since it%26#039;s in his name i.e. if I go to bigdaddy.com it says he is the one to contact.

Thanks!

Do we legally own our domain name?

He may own the ACCOUNT, but it%26#039;s your business name, and the contact information is false if it%26#039;s your business on the website... at the very least it should match your physical address... especially if you%26#039;ve got a digital signature from Verisign or Thawte... anything less is actually fraud.

Try emailing him a nice legal-sounding cease-and-desist letter, and CC a copy to the company doing the domain registration.

Do we legally own our domain name?

Sounds like you gave him permission to buy a domain name. Take hee contract you have with him, get it to an atty, and have him write up the paperwork to get the domain registered to you if indeed you can.

Other Replys:I answered a similar question, maybe a couple of weeks ago, was it you?

Bigdaddy.com (which I use also) has a dispute resolution section.

I am guessing you are not as web savvy now as you think, and that you are not in fact familiar with the ins an outs of software development, let alone its management.

And I think that you may be disappointed with the outcome of the dispute.

Not only that, but it is simple matter, and totally separate from bigdaddy, as to whether you can be cut off from access to any files or work material, whether the web site can be shutdown completely during a dispute, or even replaced with something else entirely.

And don%26#039;t forget the issues of who owns what in terms of work product - was it a work for hire or not?

I think you are going to have to rely on your contractual terms, or absent a contract, take a very holistic approach to satisfaction.

I generally, built not always, suggest my clients register their own domain names and list me as a technical contact.