I'm just curious I might be asking in the wrong section, but this is a legal section. Are any of you guys very famaliar with domains and obtaining full ownership over them. I'm not sure how that could be done because from what I read when you basically pay for a domain your legally leasing it, but how could I keep it where I can make sure no one else owns it or not registrar could ever take it? Maybe a trademark or something like that?
One may try to demonstrate trademark rights to the domain name in an effort to strengthen their "hold" over them. But it's not some magic guarantee that'll let them keep the domain name forever. In the Umbro case, the Virginia Supreme Court decided that domain names are "creatures of contract". If one doesn't agree to the registrar's contract, then the domain name will not be registered. I know lots of people would love to fully own domain names no matter what. However, the fact is we don't own domain names because our contracts with the registrars define our relationships and state our responsibilities and limits. If people have trouble accepting that, then good luck finding a way to force a registrar to deem you the permanent owner of the domain name you register with them. No registrar on earth is stupid enough to do that.
Great attitude! Very positive response. I think I'm going to transfer to enom they seem to have great ethics. I know a quite of few people that use them and I talked with them 2-3 times on the phone every time I do talk with them its all positive stuff.
If that's a compliment, I'll take it. Good luck with your registrar. Again, just be aware of what you can and can't do with them, keep in touch with them, and you should be fine.
Put the domain on automatic renewal, and then make sure you keep an eye on it to make sure nothing has gone wrong. There is no way to guarantee it will never be taken - a trademark would help prevent use of the domain by someone else in a manner that competes with your business, but not give you ownership of the domain. Broad, International trademark protection is very complicated and expensive. You can't get a trademark for a usage you are not currently engaged in .... i.e. if you're "bluelion" and sell computers, you can't get a trademark in jewelry unless you have a jewelry line. It's also very expensive - well into six figures. I have domains with enom, moniker, godaddy, etc., but if I forget to renew the domains, they ultimately are going to be released for someone else to register (even though I hold several Federal trademarks on some of them) - and you'll find that the standard no matter who you choose to go with. As long as you have rights to use the domain (not infringing upon another trademark) and pay the renewal fee, you shouldn't have any problem.
its a crying shame you cant own a domain because you are basically left at the mercy of your registrar...i guess you can own it if you are your own registrar but this is very pricey...
Even the registrars don't own domain names in the same sense as you might own a car, house (or a trade mark for that matter).
What do you think of ENOM we was thinking about transferring over to ENOM from GoDaddy? I've heard a lot of stories on GoDaddy which granted Godaddy probably does have a great service, but I think ENOM is better they just seem to have different ethics over there and are not so strict on things...
I really don't have a problem with either of them. The only problem I ever had with ENOM is when there was a problem with Registerfly (who had sold domains through them). It's a long story, but Registerfly was in financial problems but ENOM actually held the domains, and imo ENOM kind of took advantage of the situation by charging $30 a year for each domain you wanted to keep. I think any of the following are good. Moniker is actually my favorite, but there was a recent ownership change so we will see how that goes. namecheap moniker godaddy enom
Just think of it as your CW permit, drivers license, or car tags. You're just registering/leasing/renting for set periods of time, commiserate with your payment amount.
Once we start getting our domains back together I'm thinking about investing into our own registrar, but totally making it unique, and different from other registrars.
Then you'd better have about $50K-$100K by then. One needs to have their own registrar first before being able to transfer their domain registrations to them from others. LMK if you've the money ready. I won't earn anything from it, and one should do their due diligence as well, but I happen to know someone who specializes in this sort of thing.
David, 50k-100k is not much money now days, to a degree it is, but when you are a CEO of a company that's not much money. Most of our (my) investments go into our company and this will be part of the marketing budget. We our also thinking about brokering domains through our site, so therefore investing into a registrar will be well worth the investment.
In that case: http://registrarinabox.com/ Or if you're looking to protect your intellectual property as well: http://markmonitor.com http://www.ladasdomains.com Good luck.
You must be into the domain game? Also interesting I just check these sites out, and I was thinking you had to go directly through ICANN what is that http://registrarinabox.com/ for?
Partly in the domain game. I just don't let people on on how much I am. You do have to go through ICANN to potentially get a registrar accreditation. But like many ventures, there are some who can help one go through the devil in the details if they're not willing to handle it on their own.
What's that site for though? Is there some type of software we need... I was wondering if they had an API (icann) that we can connect to for domain registration and etc.