Booking Domain Name for a Company
The head of a popular organisation in India, one day found that the domain name of his...
As per the international guidelines of The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), anybody can book the domain name with any extension, barring a few names. The commercial and non-commercial organisations run the risk of their full name or short name being used for domain name booking by any third person, on payment of the required charges. Here are a few tips for secure registration of the domain name, without the risk of being misused.
1. Select your domain name, like 'mydomain'. This name should be short, reflect your organisation and should be easily remembered.
2. Go to any domain booking registrar like Godaddy, Networksolution, Register, etc. Search for your domain name. If it is available, create an account with them with your full name, organisation, postal address, contact numbers, etc. Then you can book your domain name online, paying the required charges through credit card.
3. Every domain name has three contact details viz. Registrant, Admin and Tech. Ensure that the name of your organisation is given as the contact detail for all the three contact categories. Even if you are advising the web designer to book your domain, advise him to book it only in the name of the organisation or the real owner, to avoid any future complications.
4. Once the domain name is booked in the name of the organisation, the web designer will need to visit the control panel of the domain name only when he has to change the DNS Settings or the Name Server Settings. The annual renewal charges can be paid online, when you receive the alert from the registrar.
5. Keep the user ID and the password of Domain Registrar safely and do not share them with others. Using the same user ID, you can book any number of additional domains.
6. To ensure against any misuse of the name of your organisation in the future, you can register several domain names with different connotations like mydomain.com, mydomain.net, mydomain.org, mydomain.in, mydomain.co.in, etc. All the domains can be pointed towards your main site. If yours are a popular company or organisation, and if you are holding only one domain name mydomain.com, another person can book a domain name mydomain.in and could create trouble for you. This kind of activity is called 'cyber squatting'. Since cyber squatting has not yet been categorised as an offence under the cyber law, the responsibility of protecting the domain name vests with the genuine owners.
Interestingly, whitehouse.com is not with the American Government. It was used as a porn site earlier and now they have parked the site without content. Whitehouse.gov is the official site of the President of India. There are instances where several leading Indian organisations do not own domain names with other extensions. Such organisations run the great risk of mischief makers who might purchase these domain names, causing embarrassment.
After reading this article, please visit who.is and get the registration details of your personal and official domain names. If there are any discrepancies, you can rectify them immediately and safeguard the interest of your organisation and yourself.
Web designers have no moral or legal authority to book domains in their name on behalf of the organisation when you have asked him to book on your behalf.
For any additional information, contact mailto:info@cysi.in
V Rajendran, Editorial Team, PreSense
