Digital Rights ?

[geoff1248]

Several years ago we set up a small community group for people in the village who had a specific hobby. It was decided that a web site would be useful to show photos of the items the group had produced and as a problem solving forum for the members.
We paid a local company to build the web site and maintain it as required. All went well for some time until we noticed that the site became very difficult to find online unless you input the web site .com name. A bit further investigation showed very few meta tabs or keywords. Also the Domain renewal fee was far in excess of the actual cost.
We have decided to change company and employ a member who has excellent IT skills. However as the current company registered our domain name I understand that they "own" the domain name and are not legally required to transfer the name over to our new suppliers. Is this fact or just urban legand?

[yellowtriumph]

I hope this link may be of some use?

https://www.ionos.co.uk/digitalguide...ain-providers/

[PJD1]

That would probably depend on the terms and conditions of the contract you have with the company you paid to setup and maintain the website. If they registered the domain name and there is nothing in your contract that says they have to transfer it to you if you part company then they do indeed own the rights to it for as long as they continue to pay the renewal fee. Whether it would be in their interest to do this may be another matter.

[Jhieminga]

Typically a hosting provider will register a domain on your behalf, which means that you'll have the option to take that domain name with you when you move to a different provider. Post-GPDR the WHOIS lookups don't show the full registration data anymore, so you can't check that unfortunately (my domain name has been registered by a local company, but my name and details used to be visible in there as well, as I am the one paying for it). If they did this the correct way, the domain name is technically yours.

If and when your IT literate person has identified a new hosting company, they should be able to look into the details of transferring the domain name to point to the new host. I would ask them to look into this. As long as your still on speaking terms with the local company I wouldn't expect any problems. As mentioned, it would only cost them money to hang on to a domain name, so why would they want to hang on to it?

[PJD1]

Originally Posted by Jhieminga

Typically a hosting provider will register a domain on your behalf, which means that you'll have the option to take that domain name with you when you move to a different provider. Post-GPDR the WHOIS lookups don't show the full registration data anymore, so you can't check that unfortunately (my domain name has been registered by a local company, but my name and details used to be visible in there as well, as I am the one paying for it). If they did this the correct way, the domain name is technically yours.

I may be wrong but I don't think the situation the OP is describing is the typical hosting provider relationship that you describe here. It sounds to me as though it is a small local company that has been paid to design and maintain the website, if so the company may have registered the domain name themselves in which case they may well own the rights to it (dependant on the terms and conditions of any contract they may have with the OP). As you say it seems unlikely that they should have any reason not to agree to transfer it, unless of course it is a particularly unique or desirable domain name in which case it could be a different story!

[FullOppositeRudder]

If present negotiations reach a total stalemate, you can perhaps walk away from the previous learning experience and start again with a new somewhat similar domain name. You may only need to the suffix -.com / .org / .net etc. But I do understand why you would want to continue on with a well recognised identity if at all possible.