Hi Everyone.
I have a business, and I paid someone to register a domain name for my website. This person is now in the wind, and I’m trying to figure out to who is the domain registered, so that I may still use it. The domain has been created, and when going to the page I was diverted to Virtualmin. I would just like to know in whose name is the domain registered
This has nothing to do with Virtualmin. The person only used the Virtualmin panel to get started (website, DNS, webserver etc.).
If you know the person and they won’t hand it over, there’s not much you can do, can you?
but you should at least get the registrar. and quite a bit more info that could indicate expiry/renewal. There are services that can monitor expiry dates, most registrars are used to dealing with such things but also very much tied up in knots by privacy concerns. At the end of the day this can (and probably will) be a legal matter. If you truly own the domain (and not just “claiming” it to be yours) - for example do you hold other proof of ownership? trade marks etc. time of ownership.
Also if you “paid” someone to register the domain you have a contract in law with that person. It was never theirs. Under that contract they are bound to release it to you.
As an example. I have many “clients” for whom I register and manage their domains. They sign a contract with me to register their domains and manage their websites. The fact my business chooses to “employ” Virtualmin/Webmin is irrelevant.
I understand that, and I’m not holding Virtualmin in any form of accountability. I was just hoping that someone at Virtualmin would be able to assist me in finding out if the domain name was in fact registered under my or my business name, or under the registrar’s name
You need a whois lookup like what this site does.
Virtualmin is just software, nothing to do with what you want.
All top level registrars will have dispute mechanisms. The one for .co.uk is very easy via nominet.
Just need proof it is your domain, company docs, invoices etc…
As I think is quite clear here you are confusing “Virtualmin” as being anything to do with registration. It is just a software provider (think Microsoft that provides “Windows”)
A registrar (and there are many of them) provides registration of a domain name. The registrar does not own a domain name, it is effectively a list that is managed to relate IP address to a name so that the wonderfully wonky web can find a domain. If I register a domain name eg. wonky-web.com it belongs to me and not you or “Microsoft” and not “chinaregistry.org.cn” who might perform the registration for me.
So the first step is to identify the actual registrar. It may or may not be in the same country (or even legal jurisdiction) as your domain name suggests. And probably not even in the same country as implied by your website. It is called world wide for good reason.
The next step will be to work with the registrar’s legal folk.
Have you considered the alternatives? Start over with a new domain? Something you actually own. If all the original domain name points to is a Virtualmin default page. and not a complete functioning website with valued customers, then what have you actually lost?
We are not a hosting provider and we are not a domain registrar. We have no relationship with 99% of Virtualmin users, we don’t know who most of them are. We make web hosting management software. It’s free and Open Source, with ~150k users. What they do with the software is entirely up to them.
In short: We have nothing to do with your contractor or your domain. We don’t know who they are, and we don’t know anything about your domain.
You can, of course, lookup registration information with whois domain.tld or by using one of many online whois websites, though most registrars anonymize most of the data about domains, so it’s harder to ID who registered a domain.
But, you need to get in touch with the person who registered the domain. If they didn’t provide you with the means of logging into the registrar account used for registering the domain, then they’re the only one who can help you. We can’t do anything, and the registrar (almost certainly) won’t do anything.
I have had dealings with a registrar who was (or rather their legal team under some pressure) very helpful in recovering a dot com domain that was registered with them. My client had documentation to prove ownership. The ownership was transferred and is now in the client’s control. As with all matters legal it is about having proof, fighting the case and often throwing money at it.
Knowing who the adversary is here will help (who is going to oppose the recovery)