It makes more business sense for you as the service provider to register the
domain in your name to have control for administrative purposes. To keep your
customers from thinking you have stolen anything, your written service
agreement should spell out that the customer owns the domain while you have
control as registrant to provide your service (reasons 1 through 4). At the
end of the business relationship, when the contract expires, you will sign
over the domain registration to the customer.
It works much the same as assigning copyright. A book publisher takes over
legal ownership/control of the copyright for purposes of publication,
distribution, and sales. Everybody knows it's the author's book, but the
publisher has control in order to do the grunt work. At the end of the
business relationship, usually after a set time, copyright reverts back to
the author, who can then take his book to other publishers.
You registering customers' domains in your name is just like customers
turning over their cars keys at Tire Kingdom. The shop knows cutomers won't
sky out and stiff them because they keep the keys until the customer pays.
Your name on the registration provides you a similar measure of insurance
that your customers will pay their invoices on time.
On Tuesday 21 October 2003 22:22, you wrote:
> Here's a question for those of you who register domains for other
> people: Do you register your customers' domains in your name or in
> theirs?
>
> In the past, I've registered domains in my name for several reasons:
>
> 1) I don't want them getting "Move your domain!" or the like snail mail
> at their office. It will alarm them, and I'll have to handle them when
> they call me about it. I get a lot of this mail, and I know what's valid
> and what's not.
>
> 2) I don't want the registrar sending them an invoice or anything that
> tells them how much the registration cost. (I charge them more than if
> they did it themselves.)
>
> 3) I don't want them getting emails from registrars and the other kinds
> of spam you get when you're a registrant. See #1 above.
>
> 4) When it comes time to renew, I don't want the registrar sending them
> a notice that they promptly ash can. Better I get the notice. I've got
> reminder systems set up to notify me before the registrar does.
>
> The problem with registering the domain in my name is that if they find
> out, they could rightfully complain that I've "stolen" the ownership of
> their domain. Technically, I _do_ own the domain. In truth, regardless
> of what an ass a customer or how much money they owe me, I would
> transfer the domain to them if asked. (Of course, they'd have to
> maintain the registration from that point on.)
>
> But the question remains, what's standard practice in this area? Do you
> register domains in the customer's name or in your own? Why?
>
> Paul
>
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