Can anyone advise with a problem?
My friend had a website built for her daughter. She paid £100 for webspace email space and domain name.
The web site building was donated by a lady/company as the site was for children,to help children.
My friends aim is to help children and fund some things for kids in the u.k. so there is place on site for donations.
My friend has since found out the site is not registered to her or her daughter and the website builder has refused to do so giving various excuses. All the content is mostly about her daughter and has been written by my friend. The website builder is turning nasty and my friend wonders leagally what she can do,could she shut this site down and go somewhere else?
Has anyone had a similar experiance they can share the legal facts.
The websit has had over 200,000 hits in about 2 weeks mostly from children who need someone to talk to.
Many thanks
Helen
Wasn't sure if this was better here or under the website bit.
What a wonderful thing your friend has done. One suggestion I would give, after asking my wife, would be to close the site down (saving as much as you can in the form of word documents or the such like) and go to microsoft office live, who we have got a website with, and it doesn't cost a thing. You just need to register and choose the right option (can't think what the option is just now..but its the freebie one). They even give you an email address linked to that website for inquiries.
Hope this helps.
Oakapple xx
Hi yes take your account away fromthem another option is try http://squarespace.com they are cheap and reliable and only about £4.00 a month you build your own web site using their templates and it is easy to use and also plenty help from them if and when needed. Hope this helps ceefirr
colourhappy,
You'll have to check the details of the place where the stuff was bought from.
If the the £100 includes the domain name or often termed 'registering of domain name' then it should be registered to your friend as she paid for the name. I would suggest a very strong but polite letter to the website creator along those lines.
You can transfer domains to other website host services but you will most likely need to be the registered owner to do that, which is where your problem is going to be.
Love and Reiki Hugs
Advice from a web designer
Hello,
I am also a web designer as well as a therapist and have had plenty of clients who have run into similar problems - their web designer registers everything in their name, not the clients.
As far as the domain name goes, if it is a .co.uk/.org.uk these are regulated by Nominet who have an arbitration service. I've not personally dealt with this, but there is plenty of information on the Nominet website ( http://www.nominet.org.uk/ ) as to how to proceed. As money was paid (£100 for domain and hosting is REALLY expensive by the way - you can get a .uk domain for about £5 per two years or .com for £5 a year and hosting I use is about £20 per year) it does imply ownership by the client.
If you get control of the domain name through Nominet (or even the threat of Nominet is sometimes enough), you can then get it point to any hosting pacakge you like. This would mean altering the design as you will lose the 'connection' to the current site. I can make a copy of the site in its current entirety so that you at least have all the text copy and any photographs etc... you own.
If you need further information as it's difficult to answer the whole question in one go, please feel free to PM me.
Thanks,
Emma
legal problems?
hi, my name is graham , have you ever thought of setting up a really unsual name eg like mine EROTIC NATURIST COFFEE MORNINGS with no-one else doing it advertise free on viva st ,gumtree,olx ,hallo london, national ad there are many more if you google free classified ads ,then all you have to do is say to clients google search eg EROTIC NATURIST COFFFEE MORNINGS then that can act as a website for you , i am a therapist and it works for me FREE!
HOPE I CAN HELP YOU .
GRAHAM (TANTRIC MASSEUR).:)
Graham,
have you actually read the posting or is this just a free plug for yourself?
Hi Everyone,
I have an up date on the website problem.
My friend has never recieved a reciept for the £100.
BUT she has contacted someone who say's its called CYBER SQUATTING and has advised she buy the lady out for £100 per page which will cost £1,100.
He seems to think copyright could be an issue, even her Nickname for her daughter 'jellybean' could be lost.
The website designer wants to develope the site (she see's the potential) and wants to open up a chat room for kids but is uninterested in having it monitered by adults to guard against peodeophiles.
Good new's is she has been promised by thepeople who are printing my Angel Deck that they would build her a new website and look after it for free.
I have offered to 'buy' one page,she only needs to buy 10 more pages and it is hers.
The Guy giving her legal advice has agreed to take the case on free of charge.
Please send as much positive energy and love to this situation as you can and universe willing, she will get through this.
If anyone knows of a business that may want to sponser a page or has any contacts please let me know.
Thanks for the nominet info I will forward it to my friend.
Thanks for your support
I hope to be able to put her website link in the good websites info VERY soon.
Helen :032:
Cyber squatting is when you pass off as someone else e.g. if I bought 'microsoft-software.com' and pretended to be microsoft (obviously this will bring about a legal case, so don't try this at home!). This unethical lady isn't cybersquatting, and she's technically not breaking the law.
HOWEVER, anything written by your friend, as long as she can show source documents is her work, so this unethical designer cannot continue to use that work without breaching copyright. Your friend can file a DCMA claim if the woman refuses to take that content down ( http://www.google.com/dmca.html ), which will at least mean that the site the woman is running will be taken out of the search engines for a good while if not more permanently.
Your friend may want to find a second opinion as the guy taking the case on may not be best qualified. Certainly don't offer to buy the site out - it can always be redesigned with your friend's wording on and for a lot less than £100 per page.
Emma
x