DEFINITIONS:
commercial domains -
Your customers' domains
registrant -
The registrant is the individual or organization to whom a
specific domain name is registered. This individual or organization holds
the right to use that specific domain name for a specified period of time,
provided certain conditions are met and the registration fees are paid.
This person or organization is the "legal entity" bound by the terms of the
Service Agreement.
PROBLEM
When using our DNS registration system for commercial domains , some folks
take the "easy" way out and default the Registrant to Morris Communications
Corporation. Other folks (outside of our system) default the Registrant to
be the name of the newspaper or the name of the online property.
This is something that you do not want to do. When registering commercial domains, the registrant must be your
customer. In essence, when you register domains, you are acting as an
agent for the customer. In doing so, you have the fiduciary
responsibility
to protect the customers intellectual property (i.e. their name).
If you list Morris Communications or your newspaper as the registrant,
you open the company up to potential lawsuits for registering domains in bad
faith (we've actually been threatened with lawsuits). In addition, you
give the company the liability of protecting your customers' intellectual
property: say you register the domain in your name, you forget to pay, a
domain squatter gets the name, and you've got to pay the squatter to get
the name back (or face a lawsuit from your customer).
If the customer is the registrant, Network Solutions will always send the
customer a US Postal mail invoice to the registrant's address before
cancelling the domain. The final onus of payment and protection lies
with
the customer.
SOLUTION
When you register domains for yourself (i.e. the property), you are
required to use the system at
http://admin.morriscomm.com/cgi-bin/automate/register.cgi
(requires
password). This system automatically makes the registrant Morris
Communications Company, LLC., so you don't have to worry with the registrant.
When you register domains for your customers, I strongly encourage you to
come to the registration point (whether it's us or someone else) with your
customer's legal name and business address in hand. Make that the
information for the registrant. Don't make yourself the registrant.
