Do you know who officially owns your domain name (e.g. comsbox.com, without the ‘www’)? Chances are it isn’t you.

Most of the time, you can easily find out through a “WHOIS” search. There are a number of services available, for instance via Combell. Sometimes the information is hidden for privacy reasons. If so, you’ll need to make some phone calls to know all the details.

Best practices

1. Stay in control: insist that your organization is listed as the registrant – make this clear to anyone registering a domain name for you.
2. Use a dedicated email address (e.g. domainnames@yourcompany.com) – this avoids problems when the contact person leaves your organization.

Further reading

• Domain name – Wikipedia
• Internationalized domain names – Wikipedia
• Map of domain name extensions per country – Combell

Want to know more?

The whole domain name business can be confusing: who owns a name, which names should I register, new possibilities, etc. Get in touch if you have any questions regarding your domain name registration, domain portfolio management or anything else on that matter. Happy to assist.