Medical Clinic Sues Ex-Employee Over Domain Names
Thursday, July 16th, 2009
Clinic says former employee left with domain names.
A medical clinic in Illinois is suing a former employee over domain names he kept in his name after terminating employment.
According to a post on ChicagoNow.com, the employee registered four domain names (including one very similar to the clinic’s name) with company funds back in 2002. He left the clinic in 2004, but the domain names remained in his name after he left. The clinic just found out about it, and is trying to get the domain names transferred. The ex-employee is allegedly asking for $13,000 to return the domain names.
This is a common occurrence and a reason every company needs a domain name policy. If domain names are held in someone’s name, it should be the owner. I recommend companies register all domain names with a general email address such as domains@companyname.com. If the domain name administrator leaves the company, the IT department can quickly change the forward on the e-mail address to another employee.
Further Reading:
Medical Clinic Sues Ex-Employee Over Domain Names – http://tinyurl.com/nguk5b
Why not just recommend that IT directors take a course in domain names/Internet IP and let them build management into the company policy?
Your recommendation sounds great, but in practice wouldn’t have covered the risk. That same company didn’t manage the acquisition process, and “allowed” an employee to do business with a personal email address. Chances are good that was the only way it got done anyway; if they had waited to make policy, they’d still be without a web site.
Bad management is bad management. They let the guy operate out of corporate sight, let him leave without watching over their assets, and even now don’t know how to manage the situation without looking stupid in the press.
It’s not about a rogue employee or a need for new, domain-specific policies. It’s about bad management and the consequences of bad executive management allowing said bad management to run the company. Now the ex-IT guy is a scape goat. No news there.
This happens all the time since administrators of businesses are not that tech savvy. If it’s a business domain always make sure it’s listed as a business not as an individual. If they got a good enough lawyer they could get it back pretty easy enough.
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Interesting how messy this part of the IT part of a business can get.Has an almost “analog paper” feel to it.