By Steve Williams
Let me first start by clarifying the title of this blog article. The vast majority of web developers are straight ace business people that take pride in their craft and their reputation. With that said, there a small percentage of web developers out there that will rip off your brand.
How can this happen, you ask? Its quite easy. Most people do not understand the process of domain registration and rely on an their web developer to secure the domain for them. Basically, the registrant is the legal owner of the domain name. This is usually not a big deal. Like I said most web developers are honest people. It is a normal practice for a developer handle the registration domain process along with web hosting services. If the client at some point decides to seek the services of a different developer, the domain is almost always transferred without issue. In the rare event that a web developer refuses to transfer a domain registration, get ready because you and your business are about to get screwed.
Consider the case of The North South Shootout™, an annual asphalt modified racing event that was founded by North Carolina entrepreneur Charles Kepley and his Son Chad in 2003 under the C&C Racing Promotions™ (formerly C&C Racing Souvenirs™) banner. Prior to the inaugural event, the Kepley's hired a web developer to design a website and secure a domain name that reflected their product brand. The developer secured the domain--northsouthshootout.com--then designed and hosted the site. A few years later, the Kepley's decided to switch to a new website designer. The original developer transferred the domain without issue and the new developer Bobby Everhart of Sunset Graphics (sgionline), designed a fresh site. Sounds innocent enough, right? Not so much. A seemingly normal business transaction can go bad rather quickly, as noted in this article: Is Bobby Everhart, Owner of Sunset Graphics, Guilty of Hijacking a Client’s Domain and Posting Unauthorized Content?
Fast forward to 2014
The 11th annual running of the North South Shootout is in the books and it time to prepare for the 12th annual running of the event. The elder Mr. Kepley passed away a few years earlier, and his son Chad is doing his best to keep the family business, C&C Racing Promotions, profitable and growing. Chad decides to freshen up the North South Shootout site and requests Bobby Everhart and Sunset Graphics to transfer the long standing branded domain so the new developer can get to work publishing a fresh site design. No problems, right? After all, this is common practice in the web development community. In fact, several years prior, the Kepley family, requested that Bobby Everhart and Sunset Graphics (sgionline) receive a domain transfer from the original North South Shootout website developer so they could get to work publishing a new site design. As stated earlier in this article, that domain transfer was honored without issue as is typical in the web development industry.
How can something so simple turn into such a nightmare?
Yes, I said nightmare. Mr. Everhart refused to relinquish the domain, then proceeded to hijack the actual website and publish content not authorized by the Kepley family related to the North South Shootout. Leading up to the 2014 event, the North South Shootout suddenly does not have its long standing website available for event promotion, ticket sales, and participant registration. Imagine the adverse financial repercussions this caused, not to mention the damage to the reputation and viability of future runnings of the event. Read more to put the ramifications of such an unethical business practice into perspective.
Conclusion
Your website's domain name is incredibly important to your brand. As I stated several times above, only the dirtiest and most unethical web developers would ever consider withholding your domain from you. Fortunately rogue developers are a rare breed in an otherwise honorable profession, but you still need to protect yourself by registering your domain yourself. If you didn't register your domain in in your name and chose to trust your developer to handle it, make sure you have a contract that includes specifics related to your domain registration in the event that you separate from your developer.
Good luck and happy web developing :-)
Update, 12/18/2014: Bobby Everhart and Sunset Graphics has agreed to transfer the northsouthshootout.com domain to C&C Racing Promotions.. I will publish another update when the domain transfer is official.
Update: As of 6/6/2015, almost six months after agreeing to transfer the Northsouthshootout.com website domain, Bobby Everhart and Sunset Graphics FINALLY transfered the domain to the rightful owner. The mind boggling thing about this whole episode is that Bobby Everhart still claims that he did nothing wrong. He had the audacity to request that I apologize for writing about the incident. As a stakeholder in CCRP, the parent company that owns the North South Shootout brand, I lost income related to his actions. He wants an apology, well ok.
I am sincerely sorry that you are so delusional that you think it was ok to claim personal ownership of a client's website domain that you, without a shadow of a doubt, knew did not belong to you. I am sorry that you are so delusional to think that it was ok to hijack the domain prior to the 12th annual running of the event, dismantle the website, and publish unauthorized content. I am sorry that this is the way you treat clients that trusted you to be an honest, ethical, website developer.
The End
Steve Williams
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