Starting a DRS advise

meinthecorner · Feb 22, 2008

One of my friends had a website made and designed by an outfit that regged the co.uk domain with thier name and address. Subsequently this was a static html setup with no facilities for them to update etc and all the updates needed to be carried out by the developer. As thier business has high turnaround of goods updating the site is a weekly job, something the developer just hasnt done.

They came to me and I regged the .com variant of the name and setup a basic CMS so they could do thier own updates etc. However the original out of date .co.uk is still running and obviously causing issues with potential customers.

We've contacted the developer to just get basic control of the domain to change nameservers, redirect etc which he said he would do by pushing the domain to our ukreg account. This has never been done and he never responds to emails and is no longer answering the phone.

Now we want to pursue this further, we have the invoice detailing the original job, which just states "1 x website complete" with the name of my friends business and address. The business name is the domain name. The invoice doesn't state that they regged the domain name though. Just that a website was built.

The developer has made a large number of sites for other business's around the country, i.e. Hotels, Bed and breakfasts, pubs and resturants all with the same basic template and all regged to his name and address.

So my friends now wish to go further and start a DRS to see if this gets his attention.

I've been reading the DRS help, examples and policy and note these area's

http://www.nominet.org.uk/disputes/drs/help/typicalcases/

6. "Agent" cases and ex-employees

n this type of complaint Party A (the Respondent), sometimes a web-designer or an Internet Service Provider, has registered a domain name under the instructions of Party B (The Complainant). Party A has then proceeded to register the domain name in their own name (i.e. giving themselves legal control of the domain name).

Experts has varied between deciding that it is a contractual dispute between the parties to deciding that the domain names were Abusive Registrations as they should have been registered in the name of Party B. In order to clarify this, these matters are now specifically addressed by the current Policy (3(a)(v)).

And the policy

v. The domain name was registered as a result of a relationship between the Complainant and the Respondent, and the Complainant:

A. has been using the domain name registration exclusively; and

B. paid for the registration and/or renewal of the domain name registration.

As I said the old co.uk is still running and the new .com is running alongside.

We have the invoice to say we paid for the website which is dated before the registration of the .co.uk but doesn't say it included the registration of the domain.

We have evidence that we have been using the name for a period before the domain was registered, ie accounts and certificates.

What we are concered about is the developer will be difficult and ignore the mediation process which means we have to fork out the DRS expert decision.

Any suggestions?

PM me for the domains involved.

GreyWing · Feb 22, 2008

It's in cases like this where I feel it is right that you can DRS them and then take them to small claims online court for the costs of the DRS.

Send them a letter via post and ask for it to be signed for, get proof of receipt.

I should think you will be OK in this and nominet are usually pretty understanding about these things, you aren't the first and wont be the last unfortunately.

GW

meinthecorner · Feb 22, 2008

Thanks for the reply. Do you mean send the developer a letter saying that if they don't respond to a normal Nominet transfer we will proceed with the DRS and recover cost via small claims?

In our previous emails and calls we have stated that we will pay all Nominet transfer fee's, he just doesn't seem to want to play.

Beasty · Feb 25, 2008

meinthecorner said:
Thanks for the reply. Do you mean send the developer a letter saying that if they don't respond to a normal Nominet transfer we will proceed with the DRS and recover cost via small claims?

In our previous emails and calls we have stated that we will pay all Nominet transfer fee's, he just doesn't seem to want to play.

The DRS fee for an expert decision, isn't something my friends can afford on a tight budget even with the possibilty of getting it back via small claims.

Your friends should not rely on getting any fees back from the Small Claims track - in fact I think it unlikely that they would.

I'll PM you with a few thoughts, though not any legal advice! :twisted:

aZooZa · Feb 25, 2008

I would read it that the domain registration and subsequent ownership was implicit in your original contract for development. That's how I reckon a lawyer would look at it, however I am of course, not one.