Protecting your domain name

What to do?

[Simplesoft]

Recently I purchased a new domain name. When I did a whois lookup on the domain, I noticed the domain registrar's information in place of my info. Now, I can easily change this info using their control panel. But thats not the issue. The real issue is, how do I know that I own my own domain? What prevents someone, including the hosting company (however unlikely this is) from taking that domain name from me? Apparently the company that I registered my domain through - is not actually a registrar, rather they registered my domain for me. Is this a normal practice? I'm trying to contact the company that I registered with but can not get through. What would you do?

[Reflect]

Tranfer the domain, if possible, to someone like GoDaddy or simular.

I always make myself the tech. contact and the business contact.

Get out of the situation now while the domain name is not heavily invested in.

Take care,

Brian

[bill]

Are you saying that the registrar is listed as the owner? That sounds odd.

Sometimes if you're using the registrar's URL forwarding service (or similar) they will add themselves in as the Tech contact. (This is usually spelled out in the fine print.) I know that some of my registrars do this.

[mcavic]

If you register a domain through a hosting company, it is common practice for them to be at least the technical contact. It makes it possible for them to make changes at your request.

The potential problems with this are that if someone else tries to steal the domain, they might inadvertently allow it... they might fail to let you know when it's time for renewal... or they might make it difficult for you to move your hosting away from them.