Can't Do Much?

julian · May 29, 2013

Imagine you were in 50/50 partnership with someone and your company owned one very decent domain.

If that domain accidently expired (naturally) and was caught by your partners random friend what could you do...?

Systreg · May 29, 2013

I can't see there's much you could do, the fault would lay with you for letting the domain drop, if a mate of a mate caught it, I can't see the problem with that, it's just another catch to them, I can't see how you would have any rights to the name now it's dropped. Having said that, I'm sure I've seen a couple of stories on here recently where Nominet gave a name back to the person who dropped it, and it would all depend on the specific circumstances that led to the accidental drop, for Nominet to become involved, and done on a case by case basis.

If the partners were decent, they might say to their friend, hold on, our partner owned that name and he accidentally dropped it, the mate might say, is it important to your and your partners business, or he might say, not my problem, it dropped and I caught it, I suppose it depends how close that mate and the partners are as to what might happen to the domain.

stellar73 · May 29, 2013

Agree on the whole with what Systreg has said.

Assuming it was a totally accidental drop and regular catch the "friend" cant be that be that much of a friend not to alert their pal to it however.

Could it be anything more sinister? Just wondered if the partnership was on rocky ground and there was some degree of collusion between the friend who caught the name and the partner they were mates with. I'm assuming not though as if it's a valuable name presumably there would be too much risk that it could have been caught by any other catcher if it was a "planned" drop or deletion.

namealot · May 30, 2013

Depends what the business is how much protection it has trademark etc what the partnership involved who’s legally responsible for what? in theory sue partner for the loss neglect etc ? Can it be proven as deliberate cohesion? might get name back

If the information was given intentionally or not and the third party then acted upon it look very loosely along an insider trading effecting shares issued, company value, dealing /tipping, * does depend on the business etc Has the friend have ever visited premises traded with the company have access to sensitive information etc Its not all completely lost but can be very hard to prove?

bensd · May 30, 2013

If the parter let the domain drop and had his friend catch it, I'm sure that's dodgy on legal grounds

RobM · May 30, 2013

Once a domain expires it is not yours. It's immaterial who takes it after.

Edwin · May 30, 2013

There might be grounds for legal action (negligence) if the domain name was demonstrably valuable and it could be shown that it was the responsibility of one or other partner (or both - they could BOTH be at fault and theoretically should be sued by the company itself) to maintain the domain registration.

Remember, even a small company owned by a couple of people is not the same as those same people absent the company structure. If it's formally registered, it's an entity in its own right and anyone working for the company has certain legal responsibilities with respect to protecting the interests of the company.

Pred · May 30, 2013

in circumstances like this there are no such thing as coincidences imo

if it was a 'very decent domain' I'm assuming you would think everyone would think that

in that case, there would be tons of tagholders queing up to catch it, along with people booking it at all the usual places
so what are the odds a partners random friend could have obtained it/caught it?

if it were that good you would think law of averages he couldn't have caught it himself. so did he backorder it?
or did he buy it on aftermarket from the catcher

lots of questions to find answers to, to get clearer picture

also as we all know it's expiring for 3 months, so loads of reminders
who was getting the reminders?

DaveLeeds · May 30, 2013

julian said:
Imagine you were in 50/50 partnership with someone and your company owned one very decent domain.

If that domain accidently expired (naturally) and was caught by your partners random friend what could you do...?

I'd bring in to question how the 'random friend' came to know that the name was dropping (he caught it on the drop? It wasn't FTR?) but neither partners or no one else at the company did.
As you know there are several emails sent to the registered owner regarding it's renewal, were the details correct, had they been amended to an email address outside the company denying the company the knowledge of its renewal?

Pandora's Box springs to mind.

Bailey · May 30, 2013

I don't see it as that suspicious regarding the catch.

A domainers domain, caught by another domainer - end of. Happens all the time.

The reference to "Random Friend" suggests that this is someone known by your friend within domaining circles (and your reference to caught)

I would imagine most of us would refer to fellow domainers as 'Friends' if we maintain some sort of private conversations or messages with them. Probably read into the three-month drop as being no-longer wanted. I know many of my accidental/oversight drops from around 2007/8 ended-up with people on here (before I was a member) But, I wouldn't have the audacity to bring the domains up in conversation

Systreg · May 30, 2013

After reading the above replies, it would be of help if Julian could clarify who had actual control of the domain in question.

Re Julian initial post, where he says (my bolding):

Imagine you were in 50/50 partnership with someone and your company owned one very decent domain.

Where he says your company, I take that to mean that Julian owned and controlled the domain, if so, there couldn't have been any collusion between the partner and friend in catching the domain (other than telling them this name is dropping), such as cancelling it to drop early for example, and if it was accidentally dropped in a normal drop cycle, and it was a decent name, then it would have been on the radar of a lot of catchers, so the fact that a friend of a friend caught it is just pure coincidence.

stellar73 · May 30, 2013

Pred said:
if it were that good you would think law of averages he couldn't have caught it himself. so did he backorder it?
or did he buy it on aftermarket from the catcher

This had gone through my mind too. It all seems rather convenient. Presumably Nominet could advise if the domain dropped normally following renewal failure and/or if it had been manually deleted and re-registered or transferred.

I would probably try and find this out first. Beyond this I guess it depends on the legal responsibilities conferred by the partnership agreement as to whether either partner has been negligent and whether one should be financially compensating the other etc.