Don’t let website developers rip you off

Here is a dire warning: read the small print before contracting a website developer, and make sure that it is contractually clear that you will own the code for both the resulting site and your domain name (that's the www.yourdomainname.co.za).

Don't accept the story that it is standard practice in the industry for a developer to own the code outright, because it is not. Any development work done for you should be done on a work-for-hire basis, so there is no legal presumption that the intellectual property resides with the contractor after the job is complete.

The same is true of any artwork or photography you buy for your site -- you, not your developer, should own that intellectual property agreement. Of course graphics and photography are slightly different from code in that you rarely own the original image outright, but you acquire rights to use it in specific ways.

Small businesses in South Africa appear to be at the mercy of unscrupulous website developers, who exploit the inexperience of first-time site buyers. How widespread the scamming is, and how well penetrated it is in larger and supposedly smarter client organisations, is hard to tell. But over the past two months virtually every business owner we have dealt with has a similar tale of woe: the company who developed their website refuses to let them have the code for their site, will not allow them to move to a different support company, and, in many cases, will not release even the domain of the business.

As if this cyber-squatting and code-grabbing were not bad enough, the reasons that most people are wanting to move to new web support companies is that the customer service that they originally signed up for has simply faded away. If it takes you weeks, and a great deal of money, to get a simple change made to your small business site, you have every right to move on. Any web developer worthy of the name knows that sites have to be dynamic and evolving, and that static brochureware sites belong in the 20th century. If their development business is not equipped to handle the creation and maintenance of modern business-oriented websites, they should not be in business.

The horror stories of attempted extortion make your hair curl. One business owner was told that she could have her domain (which costs about R200 per year) only if she paid the developer R200,000. Others wanted to have third party programmers work on their site since the original developers were unable to make desired changes, and were refused access to the code. Still others created new sites after successful legal action to get their code, and found that new site vindictively hacked.

Developers will try to persuade you that to own your code you will have to pay a lot more, but this is rarely justified. In some instances your site may be sharing certain software applications, such as database software or content management software, with other sites being hosted by your developer. In those instances it is perfectly fair to let you know that should you move to another hosting company you will need them to provide similar services.

If the developer absolutely refuses to let you own the code and you really do not want to use someone else, at the very least ensure that your written agreement grants you a free license in perpetuity to use a copy of the code for the purposes of running your own business, and grants you the right to modify the copy of the code as you see fit.

But do not allow bogus claims of how much money you are saving by not owning the code make you captive to ongoing hosting and maintenance fees, with no recourse if customer services are inadequate. The internet in South Africa is evolving rapidly, with newer, better, cheaper services appearing all the time. You need the freedom to put your business where it gets the best attention. If a developer tries to play hardball on intellectual property ownership, find another developer.

While we are at it, it seems that developers are also pressuring site owners into putting a promotional link on their home page which takes your visitors away from your site to the developer's site. Don't accept this, unless the developer is willing to pay for the advertising, and even then put the link deeper in your site, say on the contacts page. Make the site linked to opens in another browser window. You work very hard to get visitors to come to your site – don't lose them that easily.

At Britefire we interact with an awful lot of people who are relatively new to website development, and we are more than happy to pass on recommendations of good companies to deal with -- as well as warnings about those whose business ethics and integrity are suspect. Let us know about your experiences.