future safety of website ownership -what should we do in advance

sunandoghosh said: "Hi everyone, I am going to raise an important issue which i believe must be directly concerning every webmaster. To illustrate say I own a website with .com extension and I have been running my website for last 2 years. The website provides information to examiness of various university exams in India. Now my q is what happens if someone else by chance gains access to my username and pssword to my account. Do i lose my website to him. What options are available to me once it happens. Also are there any steps which i am supposed to take in advance to ensure that in any unlikely event, I am able to establish my legal ownership of site considering my website provides just information collected from various sources primarily and i am a small webmaster running website singlehandadly. Any particular reference in indian context will be extremely apprecited."

Darren said: "Hello, Great question and one that I think I can answer. You need to get a "TradeMark" of your website. I'm not sure what the rules will be for you, but basically the trademark is the only way to ensure the safety of your ownership. If you have the trademark, you can contact the registrar and make them restore a stolen domain to you. One more thing that you can do, and is free and easy: make sure to put your domain into a status of "Registrar Lock". This will make email switching of the domain harder to do. You're still screwed if you lose your username and password to the registrar though."

sunandoghosh said: "yes i was considering that option and based on ur replies really now feel the necessity to explore the possibilty of obtaining a trademark. also is there something called global trademark or like, just in case u know :) thanks for the reply, sunando"

edwin said: "i'm not sure how trademarks are handled from nation to nation but its worth investigating."

MrBluezman said: "Hi there You asked [I]what happens if someone else by chance gains access to my username and pssword to my account[/I] I assume that by username and password you are refering to your ftp details. Someone getting hold of these details doesn't give them ownership of the site - just access to it. Simple steps to follow if this was to happen or you think it has happened. Change your password!!! I know this sounds obvious but once changed the 'thief' has no access to your site. [B]BUT[/B] if the 'thief' has already done this themselves, simply contact your website HOST and tell what has happened and get them to change the p/word and email the details to the email address of the registered owner (ie:you). Some HOSTs may even be able to change your userid as well if there is a security issue. You are the registered owner therefore you cannot 'lose' your site to anyone. It is yours because you have bought it NOT because you know the password. If you are the registered owner of a domain name then the only way someone else can get it is by you transfering it or , naturally by someone taking you to court to get it, if they have a genuine claim to it. Also ALWAYS have a backup of your web content! Just in case the 'thief' changes or deletes anything and also just in case your hosting company doesn't go bust!!!!! Trademarking would only protect the content of the website NOT access to the domain. These are two completely different subjects."