Who owns your domains?

Every registered domain needs to have valid contact details for its owner.  From a security perspective it is absolutely vital that this information is correct and up-to-date. In the worst case scenario, inaccurate contact details can lead to you losing one or more of your domains.

What’s so important about contact details?

To register and maintain a domain today, you need to provide certain pieces of information. For most top level domains, the minimum requirements are the owner’s name, address, email address and telephone number. For domains owned by a company, these details are normally publicly available on the WHOIS register

For certain country-specific top level domains, the owner’s contact details are hidden on account of regional data protection and privacy regulations. Other top level domains will keep owner information hidden even if the domain is owned by a company – often this is something that registrars offer as an additional service.

What are the risks?

There are many security reasons for keeping domain owners’ contact details up-to-date. ICANN demands that contact information is kept accurate and current, and if you fail to do this it can, in the worst case scenario, lead to you losing important domain names.

The correct owner

First and foremost, it’s important that your domains are registered to the correct owner – this will minimise the risk of, for example, future legal disputes about the rightful owner of a domain. A common pitfall here is for employees or co-workers to personally list themselves as domain owners. Another is neglecting to update contact details after a company merger or some other structural change.

Contact Inquires

 Contact inquiries and important information sent out by ICANN or the domain registry (the organisation responsible for administering top level domains) are sent according to the details listed on the WHOIS register. If these details are incorrect, any communication from the registry won’t reach you. This is a significant problem because some of these communications will require action on your part.  Sometimes you’ll need to act on the information being sent to you within a certain time period and if you don’t do it in time, the domain can end up being de-registered.

Scenarios where ICANN or the registry need to get in touch with the domain holder can include

• Someone reporting the domain to ICANN or the registry because they suspect that the domain is being used in an improper or illegal way (yes, this actually happens!)
• Someone asserting they have a stronger claim to ownership of the domain and applying for a dispute resolution
• The registry needing to check that the domain name is owned by an active company.

Change of ownership requiring a signature

 For most domains, the previous owner needs to sign a consent form for ownership to officially change hands. Clearly this can be complicated if it is not possible to get hold of the owner – if they’re an employee or partner who has since left the company, for example.

 Dotkeeper’s recommendation

No matter the circumstances, it’s best to take a safety-first approach to the ownership of your domains. Domain names are often critical to your company’s operations and can be valuable assets in themselves. Therefore, we recommend that you should always

• Use non-personalised contact details for corporately owned domains. For example, use a domain administration account with an email address like domains@-mail. You also have to make sure that someone always has responsibility for monitoring this account.
• Make an annual check of all your domains, to make sure that the contact details are up-to-date

By following these guidelines, you will strengthen the safety net protecting your digital assets.

Links to WHOIS services:

• For .com domains we recommend DomainTools’ WHOIS service
• For .se and .nu domains we recommend IIS’ WHOIS service
• At this link you can find WHOIS services for other top level domains

Do you want some help checking, monitoring and updating the contact details for your domains?

We’d love to help! Get in touch to find out what we can do for you…