Shoutbox

A few friends and I were having a little debate earlier, and none of us could really come up with a solid answer, with proof and/or relation to law, so I was wondering what would happen in a situation like this:

Person A runs a small, unknown company.
Person B provides a domain name for that company, free of charge, and sets it up for the company.
Person B decides, after the domain becoming popular, to then redirect the domain to an obscene site.

Don't ask how this came into conversation, because well, it's a long story, but yeah, would anything here happen to Person B, and could person A actually do anything about it?

Depends.

Was there any kind of agreement made of the situation either on paper, mail or verbally logged somewhere?
Does the domain name contain the official name under which this company is registered?
Does the domain name contain any trademarks of the company?

Those would be strong points for person A. If not it's not directly a lost cause yet but I imagine you would have to convince a judge and willing to put the time and money (with risk of loosing) into that.

Really, if your company got very popular you should be taking measures to secure any hick-ups like this

When you buy the domain name, you specify the owner there. As far as the ICANN is concerned, in your example, person A would be able to do whatever he wants.

If you're speaking about laws, then it's a whole different matter. If person B feels cheated, he can always sue person A and hope to have a good enough case against him to convince a judge.

But on the other end of Patchou's stick, if Person B decided to put his/his company's name as the owner,  then Person A may be SOL.

Always make sure there is some sort of contract. You're better off spending the $6/year yourself for your domain name.

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Originally posted by Patchou
When you buy the domain name, you specify the owner there. As far as the ICANN is concerned, in your example, person A would be able to do whatever he wants.

If you're speaking about laws, then it's a whole different matter. If person B feels cheated, he can always sue person A and hope to have a good enough case against him to convince a judge.

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What he said, with A and B switched.

For simplicity, Person A is known as Angus, and Person B is known as Britney.

Assumption: "provides a domain, free of charge, and sets it up" means "registers and pays for the domain name themselves (and points to to another person's website)"

The party who registered the domain name controls it, this is how registration works. If Britney has been letting Angus use the domain name and changes their mind, it's tough luck for Angus, the domain name is registered by Britney.

Of course, if Angus isn't happy with Britney's conduct, they may seek legal intervention. In this case, contract law and the agreements made between Angus and Person B will need to be looked at.

Case study: I had a free .tk domain. In this setup (freedomain.tk), Dot.TK registered the domain name for me, and pointed it to their own site, where they had a redirection to my site. Recently, Dot.TK asserted that my domain name was inactive, and that I should buy it from them, register it myself to continue using it. I didn't, and now the redirection has been changed from my website to an advertising page. Too bad for me, I shouldn't have relied on Dot.TK. I could sue them (and see how I go), but I'm lazy.

quote:

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Originally posted by rav0
What he said, with A and B switched

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yeah, I was thinking the same. Patchou has A and B switched... Otherwise it doesn't make much sense I think....

* CookieRevised slaps drunk Patchou