When launching a web project, we often focus on the design or the features. Yet a key legal question is too often forgotten: will you really own your site once the invoice is paid?
Too many entrepreneurs find themselves "trapped" by a service provider because they don't have access or rights to their own working tool. Here are the vigilance points to guarantee your total independence.
1. The Domain Name: Be the legal owner
The domain name is your address on the web. Too many service providers register the domain in their agency's name "to simplify things".
The risk: If you want to change provider, you'll have to undertake complex procedures to recover your own name.
The golden rule: The domain name must be registered in your name (or your company's name). You must be the "Owner" (Registrant) contact.
2. The Source Code: Owning the architecture
This is where the difference between "renting" and "owning" is most stark.
On platforms like Wix or Shopify: You're renting a service. If you stop paying, your site disappears and you can't take the code with you.
With custom development: Once the project is complete, the source code must belong to you. This allows you to entrust the site's evolution to any other developer later. Always check that a clause transferring intellectual property rights appears in your contract.
3. Hosting: Keep the keys to the house
Hosting is where your site's files are stored.
Full access: You must have "Admin" access to your hosting provider (FTP, database). If a service provider refuses to give them to you, that's a red flag. A trusted partner gives you the keys to your own house.
4. Content and Licences: Watch the details
It's not enough for the code to belong to you. Graphic elements (logos, icons, stock photos) also have their own rules.
Licences: Make sure your developer purchases image or font licences in your name.
Texts: Your original content belongs to you by right, but it's always better to stipulate this in writing.
5. Documentation: The guarantee of your freedom
A website is a living organism that must evolve. For another developer to be able to intervene tomorrow without breaking everything, you need technical documentation.
The developer's ethics: A professional freelancer codes in a standardised and documented way so that you're never dependent on them by force. My clients' loyalty is based on the quality of my work, not on technical lock-in.
Conclusion: Transparency as the basis of trust
Your website is an asset of your business. Just like goodwill or a company vehicle, you must have full legal and technical control over it. By choosing transparent development, you invest in a tool that belongs 100% to you, today and for the next ten years.