Who owns my email address?

[riverking]

Got my email address about 5 years ago from a local provider who also provides my broadband access. His service is less than satisfactory & we are probably about to fall out. Who 'owns' the address ([email protected]) - if I fall out with him do I lose my identity?

 

[Schtum]

A domain lookup of river-king.co.uk gives the following.....

Domain Name:
river-king.co.uk

Registrant:
River King

Registrant's Address:
The White House
New Street
Shrewsbury
Shropshire
SY3 8JQ
GB

Registrant's Agent:
Icom Innovations Ltd [Tag = ICOMINNOVATIONS]
URL: http://www.icom-web.com

Relevant Dates:
Registered on: 19-Aug-2002
Renewal Date: 19-Aug-2006
Last updated: 05-Aug-2004

Registration Status:
Registered until renewal date.

Name servers listed in order:
ns0.icom-web.com 195.74.104.167
ns2.icom-web.com 195.74.102.21

WHOIS database last updated at 20:00:01 27-Oct-2005

--
(c) Nominet UK 1996 - 2005

For further information and terms of use please see http://www.nic.uk/whois
Nominet reserves the right to withhold access to this service at any time.

 

[riverking]

WHAT!!!!!!!!!

So by giving out my email address I'm giving out my (thankfully out of date) home address!!

Er, thanks Schtum I think. But I still do not understand who owns it, me, Icom, or Nominet?

Do other email users realise that the above info is public?

 

[Wizard]

Depends on your ISP, but it's general practice that the service provider is exactly that and the customer owns the domain. (i.e is that your address up there or the hosting companies address?) However, this may vary according to your particular contract.

If you went on and paid money to register www.river-king.co.uk, chances are it's yours. All you need to do in that case is set up an account with another hosting provider and they will (normally) change the name servers (the place info on where the computer on which your site actually lives is kept).

Catalyst2.com are a prefered host of mine. If you need any help with setup etc., drop me a PM.

 

[trotsky]

WHAT!!!!!!!!!

So by giving out my email address I'm giving out my (thankfully out of date) home address!!

Er, thanks Schtum I think. But I still do not understand who owns it, me, Icom, or Nominet?

Do other email users realise that the above info is public?

As it looks like it is your domain I suggest you go to Nominet's change of detail pages and update it and ask for the information to be removed from the "whois" service. They do this happily, here's mine

Domain Name:
oakhill.org.uk

Registrant:
Ian Dickson

Registrant's Address:

THE REGISTRANT IS AN INDIVIDUAL WHO HAS ELECTED TO
HAVE THEIR ADDRESS OMITTED FROM THE WHOIS DATABASE

Registrant's Agent:
Thus Plc t/a Demon Internet [Tag = DEMON]
URL: http://www.demon.net

Relevant Dates:
Registered on: 14-Dec-1999
Renewal Date: 14-Dec-2005
Last updated: 18-Apr-2005

Registration Status:
Registered until renewal date.

Name servers listed in order:
ns0.demon.co.uk 158.152.1.65
ns1.demon.co.uk 158.152.1.193
ns2.demon.net 209.246.126.109

WHOIS database last updated at 20:20:01 27-Oct-2005

Always keep Nominet up to date or unpleasant things happen...


EDIT - I think "How to transfer" info is on that page too.

 

[Mike Werner]

It's your domain. Full stop.

Before cancelling your current ISP, find a new one, contact them, and tell them you want to transfer your current domain to theirs. Some have problems with transfers, but in general it shouldn't be a problem.

Then cancel your current supplier. Remember, a transfer can take up to 48 hours, so you stand the chance of loosing messages.

 

[Steve]

Remember, a transfer can take up to 48 hours, so you stand the chance of loosing messages.

But if you set up your site with the new hosts, then change the nameservers before transfer, you should limit your email downtime to around 30 minutes.

 

[Fanum]

IIRC there have been several test cases where the ownership has been clearly established as belonging to the original adressee (IE you in this case Steve)

That only becomes legally dodgy when/if you don't renew the domain registration and they can sell it on, as has happened with some big corporations who weren't on the ball (but AFAIK, even then they were given the rights back by the court as it gets into brand name identity etc)

Anyone wanna buy www.fanum.co.uk ??

 

[Cheesy Mike]

But if you set up your site with the new hosts, then change the nameservers before transfer, you should limit your email downtime to around 30 minutes.

That's a bit hopeful Steve. My experience is that it can take anything from 2 to 5 days for things to fully settle down due to long TTL settings on domain name server caches.

Mike

 

[Mike Werner]

But if you set up your site with the new hosts, then change the nameservers before transfer, you should limit your email downtime to around 30 minutes.

It's the DNS transger that can take a while. You'll probably find that in the US and UK it'll go quickly, but asia, africa and middle east, it can take a while. Some only update once a week.

 

[Steve]

It's the DNS transger that can take a while. You'll probably find that in the US and UK it'll go quickly, but asia, africa and middle east, it can take a while. Some only update once a week.

True. 99.9% of our clients are in the UK.