Online Media News South Africa

Website name hijacking – what to do

In today’s marketplace, having your own website is becoming a very important part of running a business, and gaining control of your domain name in South Africa need not be an expensive and drawn-out legal battle. Now there is a better way to lodge a dispute, instead of admitting defeat because you didn’t have the means to fight the abuse of your domain name.
Website name hijacking – what to do

Having an online presence (in the form of a domain name that refers to your website on the Internet or, at least, your email address) has become one of the most important requirements in modern business.

Back in the ’90s, Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect for Microsoft, said: “Soon, there will be two types of businesses – those businesses with an online presence and those that are out of business.” While at the time, Gates’s views were seen as somewhat extreme in the light of what is widely referred to as the “dotcom bust”, today’s business environment begs to differ.

De-facto element of modern business

The majority of businesses throughout Europe and America operate with some form of online presence because things like online shopping, email and eCommerce are a de-facto element of modern business – whether we like it or not.

This doesn’t necessarily mean the death of the retail store front or the traditional office park or warehouse, but it does mean making yourself or your business more accessible to potentially billions of new customers worldwide.

That’s all very well and good. But, imagine the surprise when you finally decide to register your own .co.za website name, only to find out that your name has already been taken by another person or business.

Even worse would be if somebody has “hijacked” your online brand by registering a website name that is very similar to your business’s name, or registered an abusive website name that aims to defame your company.

This can happen to anyone, whether it is intentionally or by accident. And in cases where this has been done intentionally to gain an unfair advantage over a competitor, it can turn out to be a very expensive and drawn-out legal battle to try and re-gain control over a domain name.

SA process launched

The .za Domain Name Authority (.za DNA) – the organisation that oversees all the SA website names (domains) on the Internet – has subsequently launched a process to make the process of lodging a domain name dispute easier and cheaper for small businesses and individuals.

This process makes use of a number of regulations that have been signed into power by the Minister of Communications, Dr Ivy Matshepe-Casseburri, called “The Alternative Dispute Resolution Regulations”.

The process requires that people or businesses wanting to lodge a complaint are able to provide evidence that will justify why a specific website name is either abusive or was intentionally and unfairly registered by the current owner.

The case is overseen by accredited and impartial adjudicators, which will make a ruling based on the evidence that is presented. There is also an opportunity to appeal a ruling if one of the people or businesses is dissatisfied with the outcome of a hearing. But the final ruling is legally binding and the authorities are obliged to enforce the decisions of the adjudicators within a prescribed amount of time.

Lodging a dispute with the authority will cost between R10 000 and R24 000, depending on the desired number of adjudicators to oversee the hearings. An appeal will cost an additional R12 000.

Fees less than court

These fees are far less than those incurred by taking the matter to court, which can run into hundreds of thousands of rands. They are also in place to both prevent abuse of the dispute process as well as to help build up a base for a fund to be offered to businesses or individuals who qualify for financial assistance to lodge a dispute. The question you really need to ask yourself is: “How much is my online identity or brand worth to me or my business?”

It has been the trend in the past for cyber-squatters to register various common or popular domain names and then attempt to sell them to the rightful owners at hugely inflated prices – at 10 or even a 100 times more than it cost them to register in the first place.

While this is something that managed to earn people in the US a lot of money (in the cases of creditcards.com and business.com being sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars), the regulations aim to eliminate this practise as it is believed that everyone in SA is entitled to their own .co.za domain name – without having to pay a premium.

Similarly, a business’s online brand could be badly damaged if another company registers a domain the likes of “yourcompanysucks.co.za” or a domain name that incites hatred or violence against a particular race or religion.

Think of a domain name as an online ID document. In SA, you can do little without having to produce your ID book for some reason or the other. And, with the increasing adoption of the Internet as a source for business information and interaction, making sure you have that online “ID document” is becoming more of a priority.

About Hasmukh Gajjar

Hasmukh Gajjar is the chairman of the .za Domain Name Authority. He is also the deputy CEO of Faritec and participates in numerous ICT and other related forums having served on the BITF, the SACF and the ICT Charter Working Group. He is also chairman of the Thabo Mbeki Education Trust and continues to participate in transformative issues in the technology sector. Contact him on tel +27 (0)11 800 7400 or email him on .
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