How to transfer a domain name from a non-existent entity

December 20, 2006 11:03 AM

Domain ownership transfer question, with a few... Complications.

In advance, I apologize if this question has already been asked & answered. I went through a bunch of the old questions and was unable to find one that matched this problem close enough to be useful.

Until recently, I'd owned a domain (let's call it xyz.com, as a pseudonym) for a very long time -- Since 1994, as a matter of fact. I got tired of running my own site, and decided to sell off the domain. I found a (corporate) buyer, negotiated a price, and we began the transfer process.

Their IT guy was essentially driving the transfer, and the first step he took was to request a transfer to his registrar, an address change, and contact changes. Not a problem, I took care of what I need to on my end, he took care of his, and it was completed without incident. Note that this was only a registrar + contacts change, NOT ownership!

So step 2 of the process was/is to try and transfer domain *ownership* to them, and here's where we're hitting a snag.

See, when I registered this domain, this was back in the day when I'd call up the InterNIC (I was hostmaster for an ISP at the time) and ask for a domain name. There was a cursory form to fill out, but mostly it was just ringing them up and saying, "I want xyz.com, here's the info, thanks." At the time I had a joke company name, let's call it Fiddle Dee Dee, and I registered the domain under that company name. I assume you're starting to see the problem here.

Eventually InterNIC's registration services went to Network Solutions, and from there I transfered to another registrar back in probably 1998. At no time did I bother to try and change the name of the company; there was no reason to. I kept the tech/admin/billing contact information up to date, of course, and the company name never became an issue, until now.

Now that the domain's with the new registrar, the buyer for xyz.com obviously wants to change the ownership to them. No problem, sez the new registrar, just have the old owner present articles of incorporation for Fiddle Dee Dee, send them to us registered mail, etc. No such company exists, it never did. And to make matters more complicated, as a result of the registrar transfer (and accompanying contacts updates), there's nothing at all listed in the whois record for xyz.com that mentions my name anywhere, period. I could just as easily be Joe Shmoe calling up and saying, "Hey, yeah, I'm the old owner of xyz.com, trust me on this, and give it to these other guys, thanks." I'm not the owner, I'm not a contact, my address isn't the owner address any longer, etc.

There has to be some method registrars use for addressing this problem, for all intents and purposes this domain is orphaned. The supposed owner doesn't exist, at all, and the new owners have no way of proving this. I can't even do something drastic like cancel the domain and let them re-register it.

I'll talk to the registrar, of course, but I wanted to hear if anyone else has ever run into this situation, and what they did to resolve it (if it got resolved).

posted by wolftrouble to computers & internet (5 comments total)

Can you prove that you have paid the fees every year, etc. for the domain? Maybe you can convince them that way and say you were "Doing Business As" Fiddle Dee Dee. You can also make an affidavit stating you are wolftrouble, DBA Fiddle Dee Dee.
posted by lee at 12:36 PM on December 20, 2006

I was in the _exact_ same situation a few years ago, shortly after the Internic/NetSol switchover. At the time Network Solutions let me get by with a letter (on made-up letterhead of the fictitious company) stating my intent to sell. I signed it with a title of "President". I imagine things are stricter now, but it might be worth trying. My fake company was called "Naked Lettuce Productions" - they were completely un-phased by it.
posted by Svenny at 12:51 PM on December 20, 2006

lee: I certainly can to *my* registrar. But the domain is no longer registered there, so the new-owner's new registrar has no payment history for me.

Svenny: I'm on the verge of just trying that, if nothing more concrete is forthcoming.

Thanks for the answers so far, folks.
posted by wolftrouble at 1:49 PM on December 20, 2006

Document your ownership of the domain via check numbers or credit card payments for the time owned. Make up some simple d/b/a/ Fiddle Dee Dee Internet Group letterhead, listing yourself as owner, sole proprietor and webmaster extraordinaire. Write to them explaining that you used the company name as a dba (doing business as) and it is now defunct, but you are, in fact, the principal, and have shown ownership since the domain was 1st registered, and are authorized to transfer ownership.
posted by theora55 at 3:48 PM on December 20, 2006

The letterhead should do it. I have never heard of this "articles of incorporation" nonsense for a dotcom and I ran a small registrar for 3 years.

Now, if we're talking about a different country TLD (especially a dotca) then things do get a little more sticky, but even then the letterhead is usually good enough.
posted by sonicgeeza at 5:52 PM on December 20, 2006