Is your domain name under .si TRULY yours?
At Registry, we often hear this plea for help: “Hello, I’m John and I’m an entrepreneur. The guy who created my web page is blackmailing me. He’s asking for an exorbitant price for my domain name to be renewed. How can you help me?”
When an entrepreneur is starting his or her business, defining, who will be the domain name holder, surely is not one of his priorities. Yet, in our experience, this is where things all too often go pear-shaped. The story usually goes like this: John started a new business. Being a competent entrepreneur, he put his mind to the task, advertising, developing customer relations, procurement of necessary materiel, HR, and peculiarities of the tax system. It was immediately clear, he needed a website, which he had commissioned to someone he knew, not putting a lot of mind to it. The question of who would be the domain name holder of johnsbusiness.si, was never even discussed. Domain name johnsbusiness.si was thus registered by web page developer. During registration via registrar, it was the web page developer who had supplied his personal data and electronic address to the registrar and not John.
A few years had passed, the web-developer was regularly updating the webpage, johnsbusiness.si was going strong, webshop was added to the web page. John would occasionally publish a blog, which would then be shared via social networks and would attract new customers. A well designed and clean web page, as well as .si domain, have reflected on John’s business as one of trust and locality – an important aspect indeed.
An unpleasant surprise
One morning, John got a call from his accountant – his business had grown to several employees – saying, their email accounting@johnsbusiness.si is not working. They had the same problem with sales@johnsbusiness.si and all other company email addresses.
When John checked his webpage in the morning, he saw it wasn’t loading either. He called the web page developer at once, who had thus far taken care of his webpage. The webpage developer explained to him, he was facing some financial hardships and that, John needed to pay him a thousand euros for a “domain name renewal”. If this didn’t happen, John’s website would not be available, nor would he be able to use his email services, even though John’s website was hosted on a server in John’s possession. The domain name has no connection to it.
On this day, John realized there was something out there called “a web domain name” (in this case, johnsbusiness.si and that it is exceptionally important, who the domain name holder is).
There are many similar stories
John found himself in a dire predicament. He had turned for help to Registry for .si TLD. Yet, Registry is unable to rule in this sort of disputes. Thus, John may be facing a long and arduous court case.
Such stories are not rare in Slovenia. This is the reason we call upon domain name holders and the public to make sure the domain name holder data supplied to the Registrar (and by the Registrar to Registry) is accurate, complete, and current. If you have a business and brand-related domain under .si TLD, make sure, you are the domain name holder.
You can read more on the importance of orderly domain name holder data and how important it is for you and only you, to be the domain name holder HERE.
