What’s in a name? On the Internet, almost everything. Your particular and specific address is unique. Whether it is your email address or your web page (assuming you have one) your address is one-of-a-kind. It may be on loan or you may own it. No matter. It is “you.”

A domain name is that alphanumeric address that is unique to that “domain.” For example, wetapple.com is unique to Wet Apple Publishing, publishers of the Kitsap Business Journal, and the KBJ website at www.kpbj.com. The “internet world” finds the www.kpbj.com website because the domain “wetapple.com” has been registered with an authorized “registrar” and hosted at a website hosting company.

The registrar in this case is GANDI, and three “contacts” are listed on the registration. The owner of the domain is Wet Apple, Inc, street address in Port Orchard. The admin contact is listed, as is the technical contact and billing contact. All correct so far. Note that the admin contact is a Wet Apple contact, phone number and email address. So is the billing contact. The technical contact is the hosting company, in this case Telebyte NW. How do I know that? I know that because a performed a “whois” lookup.

There are several ways to perform a “whois” lookup. Perhaps the easiest is to use http://www.samspade.org. Sam Spade is a spamfighter site, offering a variety of Internet tools. “Whois” is one of the most frequently used. Put the www.samspade.org URL (Uniform Resource Locator) in your browser address window. Once there scroll down to the fifth line. Type in “wetapple.com” and click on the “whois” button to the right.

The resulting page provides the information I earlier listed, as well as the “domain name servers” servicing this domain. All quite correct, and just the way it should be.

Ah. There’s the rub. All too often, companies that register domains for customers do something that verges on the unethical, and in some cases may actually be illegal. They will register a domain for a client, but list themselves as the owner and use their contact information for all three contacts (admin, technical and billing). What this means is that the hosting company owns the domain and has all rights to it. For example, if the wetapple.com domain were listed with TELEBYTE NW as the owner, and ALL the listed contacts were Telebyte contacts, Wet Apple Publishing would have a very difficult time taking it away. The only recourse Wet Apple might have is to sue for copyright infringement. That would be a most unsatisfactory and expensive situation for Wet Apple.

What happens if your domain is something generic, such as “popcorn.com?” (Currently registered to Frontier Credit Corp. of Canoga Park, California. Go figure.) What if you got in a tiff with your hosting company and decide to move your website? Too bad, Charlie. You don’t own the domain “popcorn.com.” Your hosting company does. You may or may not be able to wrestle it away. If your hosting company is really, really nice, they may permit you to buy “your” domain from them. And maybe not.

The bottom line? A reputable hosting company will ensure that the customer is the owner of the domain, and that at least the admin contact is clearly associated with the owner of the domain. Preferably the billing contact is as well. The Technical Contact should remain the current hosting company, for obvious reasons. If you own your own domain, perform a “whois” to ensure the registration is proper, and that YOU are listed as the owner, with accurate contact information. If it is not, insist your hosting company correct the registration immediately.

A final note. There are now a plethora of registrars out there. Go to http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html for a list of accredited registrars. Network Solutions is no longer “the Internic.” A few on the list are godaddy.com, Gandi.net, bulkregister.com, and of course, Network Solutions. Some are lacking in the ethical department. Read their contract BEFORE registering your domain with them. There should be strong language in the contract and their acceptable use policy prohibiting spamming or other Internet abuse, and there should be strong language to the affect that YOU own the domain. Any disputes will be adjudicated at the registrar’s jurisdiction, but there should be strong language that they will not take away your domain without a court order or some other strong requirement.

Your “name” is important. Just as identity theft is real problem in the brick and mortar world, “domain name” theft is a very real problem in the virtual world. Nail your “good name” down, before someone steals it away.