Do you really own your domain name? NO!

A lot of people believe that they own their domain name, and the truth is, that you are paying an ICANN fee for the privilege of temporarily using it.

If someone successfully disputes your domain registration, you can lose the name. If you don't pay your domain renewal fees, your website hosting will be fruitless.

On a similar note, did you know that there are literally tens of thousands of domain names that are not legally registered to the person who pays the bills?

Quite often a web hosting company will register a new customer's domain name to themselves. They do this incase the customer tries to move the domain name away while an overdue balance exists on their account.

Similarily, a web designer who is waiting to get paid for their design work, may register the domain name with themselves as the registrant, eventhough the owner of the company pays for the domain registration.

This is why it is very important to double check who your domain name is legally registered to occasionally, especially if you are employing other people to look after your website hosting or website design.

This way you can eliminate any future problems should your web hosting company, OR web designer try and hold your domain hostage for whatever reason.

Holding a domain hostage, happens more than you may think. I personally do not agree with doing that under any circumstance, but there are many shady people in the industry who do not feel the same way.