[sac-board] Re: Worrying about SAC's Website

Loss of a domain name typically comes about because the annual fees for 
registration are not kept up to date.  (Recently, Harbor Freight Tools, 
of all companies, evidently went through that......)  However.....other 
situations can happen.
I understand Bob Stephens (long-time Treasurer of RTMC and IAPPP-West, 
now SAS, both non-profit corporations in California), had a struggle 
with the domain names when the hosting ISP went bankrupt and was bought 
out by another company several years ago.  The domain registration 
authority mistakenly assigned both domain names to the new ISP owner.  
Bob had to fight to get that straightened out.  However, since he is 
head of a CPA firm with an in-house lawyer (Fox & Stephens in Rancho 
Cucamonga, CA), the situation was settled pretty rapidly, after Bob 
captured ALL of the domain names held by the defunct ISP!

As Paul will likely explain, there is a web site (or sites) where you 
can inquire as to the current status of ownership and (perhaps more 
importantly) the registered agent for particular domain names.  (The 
registered agent could be the hosting ISP, in which case, you might have 
trouble down the road if the business changes hands.....)  You can also 
research to see if a name that you may be considering registering is 
already taken.  The AZ Corporation Commission has a similar site, for 
corporation and business names.

FYI, nonprofit corporations in Arizona must file an annual report, in 
order to keep current.

For SAC, this might amount to having a set of members who would 
constitute a group of "trustees" to stand up for and maintain such 
annual registrations.  Some corporations hire a "statuatory agent" 
(typically a lawyer), who takes care of that (for a retaining fee).

The club might also consider registering/trademarking the SAC (Saguaro 
Astronomy Club) name and logo with the U.S. Patent Office.

Gene Lucas
(17250)

AJ Crayon wrote:

>This sounds like a can of worms.  But it is a can of worms we need to deal 
>with unless we want more problems down the road.  This is the same thing that 
>happened to the Prescott group.  I'd like for it to not happen to SAC.
>
>Hope this helps,
>aj
>---- Paul Dickson <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: 
>  
>
>>Item for the business meeting agenda:  SAC's website.
>>
>>FYI - I have a new job.  I work at GoDaddy.com.  This has been my first
>>week on the phones as sales and support.  I'm sort of surprised by the
>>number of people who have lost control of their domain names.  If this
>>happened to SAC, we would have a difficult time proving that we own the
>>site (how would we prove who SAC is?).
>>
>>Currently, our web administrator has not been a member since the end of
>>2005.  If he were to be fatally trampled by a herd of house cats, we
>>might be in for some difficulty getting control back if he has changed
>>any security settings from those Steve Coe set initially.
>>
>>I propose that the control of SAC's domain name (acount number, login id,
>>pin number) be held by three club members, each of which have signed an
>>agreement that the club's domain name belongs to SAC.  So in the event
>>that something very bad happens, the club can site hold on to the web
>>site at least through the other two members.
>>
>>      -Paul
>>
>>
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