Selling subdomains

[twostepsbehind]

Hi,

I’m looking to sell subdomains with websites on them. What do I need to make sure to tell customers legally?

 

[Ben Thomas]

ChatGPT costs nothing, or Plus costs £20, it's actually really useful for things like this.

 

[Jiblob]

I personally wouldn't rely on ChatGPT for anything that relates to real legal matters. Although one may be able to get a starting point from it.

If it's .UK I believe that you can't sell subdomains, I think that is stipulated in the registrant agreement.

As for reselling on a TLD that you are allowed to, the 'legalising' you need to do isn't to 'make it legal', per se, it's to sow it up such that the terms/agreement you draw up protects you from other people trying to make you lose your house when you go bust or whatever - IE limit your liability. And to pay tax on your earnings.

 

[Ben Thomas]

Of course you can, what do you think happens when you sign up for a hosting plan that includes a subdomain?

EDIT: That said, if you mean you want to sell subdomains as in it.com type stuff, I think this may point you in the right direction:

https://www.acorndomains.co.uk/threads/some-updates-to-nominets-q-a-about-uk.121532/#post-471314

 

[Jiblob]

I thought I might have just made it up in my own head for a second then, but then I checked ze rules. I might be missing something or misunderstanding it, but here's where I read it:

https://nominet.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Redline-dotUK-Rules-of-Registration-FINAL.pdf

Under headings:

Part IV: Third Level Sub-Domains
7. SLD registrations (NOTE RESERVATION RIGHTS APPLY TO CERTAIN HOLDERS OF THIRD LEVEL REGISTRATIONS UNTIL 10 JUNE 2019)​

The sale of third level registrations to unrelated third parties is not permitted

​

It looks as though there was a fairly lively debate about third level names, as can be read on page 48 of document https://media.nominet.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/SummaryofdirectukFeedback_1.pdf under heading Part IV: Third Level Sub-Domains from when they were consulting on releasing the .UK only second level domains (SLDs). This bit is particularly funny, I agree with it entirely:

“It is deeply ironic that you say you want to avoid confusion in the namespace, when that is
exactly what introducing direct .uk registrations would do. If Nominet is going to be allowed
to destroy the good order of the .uk namespace by this plan, for profit, why should others not
be free to do the same. Additionally this may present huge problems for companies that are
built as confederations of partnerships at each 'branch' (lawyers, etc).”

So I guess it could just be a restriction on .UK only names if I'm reading correctly, because it only appears in the official rules of registration document under the header for .UK second level name owners and not third level.

 

[Helmuts]

this is a tricky one..

1) you need to establish trust that the domain name will not be sold or dropped

 

[twostepsbehind]

So the title of the post maybe misleading - I want to well websites i.e. web design packages whete they can be allocated a subdomain. The subdomain would not be available ti he used by the customer for their own website or their own email setup or anything like that

This feels like it would not be breaking the rule mentioned above

 

[Ben Thomas]

So the title of the post maybe misleading - I want to well websites i.e. web design packages whete they can be allocated a subdomain. The subdomain would not be available ti he used by the customer for their own website or their own email setup or anything like that

This feels like it would not be breaking the rule mentioned above

In this instance I am confident it is completely within the terms to do this. I've seen many businesses do this. Myself included. For example, when a user signs up for hosting plan they don't have a domain name, they also don't want to register one yet because they haven't decided on one, they can choose a subdomain. It would not be deemed a sale, as your ToS may stipulate something along the lines of "Free subdomain for the life of the hosting plan" ie. the subdomain is non-transferrable.

 

[twostepsbehind]

Would Nominet confirm this in writing as in an email or something? Or do I need to try a different route

About to invest a fair bit of cash into this venture and don’t want this huge pitfall

 

[Jiblob]

Would Nominet confirm this in writing as in an email or something? Or do I need to try a different route

About to invest a fair bit of cash into this venture and don’t want this huge pitfall

I'm sure that they will