Warning/PSA To All You Business Owners!

[6]

Own Your DOMAIN!!!


I'm dealing with a situation right now. A very big company. Big. ( If I where to say the name everyone in the north east would know who I'm talking about. Especially all y'all MA/NH folk, would have a fit. )

Well they started small, hit a HUGE growth spurt and ended up being a multi billion dollar company/brand.

They outgrew their I.T. so they brought me/us in to take over.


Well we learned that when the i.t. guy set up the 7 domains they use for their business, he registered them ALL in HIS OWN NAME.

That's not just the websites kids. He has control over the mx records (email) as well.. want to go to the cloud? Want mail filtering, o365, some AWS services... Guess what. Gotta verify your domain ownership, create/modify/move records to make this stuff work.

With the flip of a switch this dude, with his one click (maybe 7) could bring them to their knees, and he can stop us dead in our tracks doing this migration.

Listen y'all, sounds stupid on a motorcycle forum. But if you own a business or website and trusted and i.t. guy/gall, web person, family friend, neighbors dog, whomever, to set up your website for you, do yourself a favor. Run a whois and see if you actually own it.. because if you don't, then either get a lawyer or build your business around another brand.

This is an absolute nightmare.

[bones]

Wow, that is a major fuck up by the company.
As you said, there are so many things down the road that will bite you in the ass if you don't actually own your domain.
Can't migrate to a new Tenant, can't self manage email - as you mentioned with MX records, hell you can't even do simple things like connect Adobe Cloud for any type of SSO without having rights to your Domain records.

[wildwhl]

Total mess, and I've heard the story many times. Good luck man.

WW/R

[frinesi2]

According to my dad, a seasoned IT guy and network engineer, there's established precedent that an incorporated company/brand can't be coerced in to buying a domain name from a private party. So if it comes down to it, there's a path to legal restitution (but it's still a pain in the ass).

Apparently back in the early days of dot coms, people would buy domain names to essentially hold them hostage and force corps to have to buy them. A few people made money but the tactic got shut down pretty quick.

Add to that - he's basically trying to claim the company's intellectual property. Which, well, it's not gonna go well for him.

[bones]

Apparently back in the early days of dot coms, people would buy domain names to essentially hold them hostage and force corps to have to buy them. A few people made money but the tactic got shut down pretty quick.

Add to that - he's basically trying to claim the company's intellectual property. Which, well, it's not gonna go well for him.

The tactic of registering domains to known company names was known as Cyber Squatting.
A few people did make some good money doing it.

Legally, the guy doesn't have a leg to stand on, but, he can make it real inconvenient for the company in the meantime. Especially if they are still a small business.

[6]

The tactic of registering domains to known company names was known as Cyber Squatting.
A few people did make some good money doing it.

Legally, the guy doesn't have a leg to stand on, but, he can make it real inconvenient for the company in the meantime. Especially if they are still a small business.

They are far from a small business, but legal action takes time and when you have a huge organization built around a few domain names you don't have the time the law takes.

If dude shuts off those services, even if they can quickly get a cease and desist order, it's still going to be epicly costly and disruptive.

And from my spot, I have no ability to force dude to do anything... I don't own the domains nor do I have a claim to them. All I can do is explain the severity of the situation to the owners and try to continue the deployment.

[Toxicwst]

jesus.f*ing.criminy.