Please, don’t let your web developer register your domain name
Your domain is an asset only if you hold the keys to it.
A web developer who registers your domain is not a vendor; they are a landlord. Paying the invoice does not create ownership. Registrar account credentials do.
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This is not a story about malicious contractors. It is an incentive problem. Whoever controls the asset also controls the leverage in every later disagreement.
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A hostage domain is not just an inconvenience. It costs traffic, email, customer trust, and negotiating power if the name ever becomes valuable.
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The fix is mundane and free: register the domain yourself, in your own account, with your own payment method and your own two-factor authentication. Then grant access to the developer — never transfer ownership.
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If it is already too late, recovery is slower than prevention: registrar disputes, potentially UDRP, then lawyers. Each is more expensive than the five minutes it takes to open an account.
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Treat contractor registration as a contract risk, not a technical convenience. The company that owns the name owns the relationship.
The reporting is Domain Name Wire’s; the read above is Handlemart’s.
Read it on Domain Name Wire