Proof of Domain Owership After Registerfly Mess

http://www.tiawood.com:80/2007/proof-of-domain-ownership/

Tia Wood is going through an emotion that all domain registrants go through at some point. "How can I prove that my valuable domain names are really mine and protect myself from getting hurt (intentionally/unintentionally) by my registrar"?

Unfortunately the best thing you can do is buy a domain registrar of your own, or leave your full name on the whois record so that www.domaintools.com and other whois services can cache that record.

I think Jay's www.nameintelligence.com could provide a record keeping service where he takes a cache snapshot of each of your whois records, dates it and stores it in case of a rainy-day when your registrar blows up, or as evidence for a trial. Ultimately you probably wouldn't get much relief because most registrars 'terms of services' (which you have to agree to) are written to protect the registrar and offer you little protection.  That takes me back to running your own registrar.

Comments

[Tia Wood]

Good answer.

However, how will these records hold up in court? For example, what if I were apart of a class action lawsuit against RegisterFly or ICANN due to lost domains, how could I prove that my domains were mine? Would screenshots/emails/etc hold up in court? My concern is that these things can be faked. Let's say I had a valuable domain. What's to stop someone else from creating fake screenshots/emails who happens to get there before I do?

***FS*** If it were an independent third party providing the evidence and they are a recognized being in the business of recordkeeping, then I think those shots would hold up.. but to what end? If you go through the acrimony of a trial and the registrar said: "You agreed to our terms of service, which says we owe you nothing in the event of catastrophic loss".. then its all for nothing anyway.