
Commission to revoke British .eu domains after Brexit - vinnyglennon
https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/commission-to-revoke-british-eu-domains-after-brexit/
======
anfilt
Pretty petty if you ask me. ICANN generally lets things be grandfathered in.
However, it is a country code domain so they can administer it how they want.

~~~
afandian
The UK's conduct has been appalling. I am deeply ashamed about how my
government has conducted itself, and represented the people of the UK. I think
the EU's response has been restrained if anything.

~~~
SeaSeaRider
Threatening to delete domains for political reasons is “restrained”? I hate
brexit probably as much as everyone here, but the institution of the EU has
not come out of this any better than the Tory government.

~~~
Cthulhu_
The EU can claim the moral high ground here; they have remained politically
professional and not petty, unlike the UK who did the referendum in the first
place as a petty political play, and who is now massively voting against a
deal, each for their own reasons; the deal is bad, we don't want to leave the
EU so let's postpone or force the UK to stay, or we want to force re-
elections.

------
stunt
This news is written in a really weird way, and I can't believe that it is not
intentional.

Of course, if the commission is going to do it, it will explain why it is
required, what it is going to happen, and how is it going to happen and they
will make sure nobody is harmed because of this transition.

Don't be naive!

~~~
alias_neo
You may be right, but, the more Brexit news I hear, and the more I read, the
more I get the feeling that parts of Europe and the EC are making efforts to
make an example of Britain.

It may be that the news is following a certain rhetoric, but, it seems clear
that the likes of Merkel intend to do this, she's all but said as much.

My point here is that when one person is telling you they want to do harm,
people will take to believing it when it's presented elsewhere.

My problem with news like this, is that I see people interpreting it as "look,
EC is evil and trying to screw us, we really should leave". Really, I think we
should see it as, "we're leaving the EU, they're afraid others will do the
same and want to use us as a deterrent".

~~~
SeaSeaRider
The EU acting in a beligerent way is an admittance of weakness. If they were
powerful then they we would let the UK leave with no problems.

~~~
Marazan
Leaving the EU is a problem.

It is not in the EU's interest to let the UK have all the benefits of being a
member without actually being a member.

~~~
robertony
Do you think it's in .eu's benefit to do this? I ask because across Europe
Union there is a rise in euroscepticism and right-wing parties right now.

If I was a non-UK but EU business, I may even consider moving off .eu sooner
rather than later (assuming they actually did this to the UK)... If I was a
new business, I'd probably avoid .eu altogether.

What do you think?

------
jobigoud
Weird considering domains in .su (soviet union) are still around.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.su](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.su)

~~~
anonymou2
In Soviet Russia domain own you!

------
DomreiRoam
Brexit notice from EURid the domain name registry that operates the .eu top-
level domain:

[https://eurid.eu/en/register-a-eu-
domain/brexit-](https://eurid.eu/en/register-a-eu-domain/brexit-) notice/

~~~
tremon
Thanks! That notice is a far cry from the "within 48 hours of the revocation"
as suggested in the article. It's actually two months grace period with normal
domain availability, followed by ten months of suspension (domain will be
removed from the published zone, but not available for reuse).

The most important wording is this, I think (save for the flag day, the text
is the same in both scenarios):

 _From $flagday, EURid will NOT allow the registration of any new domain name
where the registrant country code is either GB /GI.

On $flagday, EURid will again notify by email both GB/GI registrants and their
registrars that their domain name(s) is not in compliance with the .eu
regulatory framework. Registrants will be given the possibility to demonstrate
their compliance with the .eu regulatory framework by updating their contact
data [..] During this two-month period, the domain names in question will
remain active.

As of ${flagday +2months}, all registrants who did not demonstrate their
eligibility will be deemed ineligible and their domain names will be
WITHDRAWN. A WITHDRAWN domain name no longer functions, as the domain name is
removed from the zone file and can no longer support any active services (such
as websites or email).

Twelve months after the UK withdrawal, i.e. on ${flagday +12months}, all the
affected domain names will be REVOKED, and will become AVAILABLE for general
registration. Their release will occur in batches from the time they become
available._

Where $flagday is either the Brexit date (29 March 2019) in case of a no-deal,
or the end of the transition period (1 January 2021) in case a withdrawal
agreement is in place.

------
t0astbread
So this effectively means don't register a .eu domain if there's any
discussion in your country about an *EXIT?

~~~
tehlike
don't register an eu domain at all - who knows if eu will exist in near
future?

edit: eu was founded in 1993. it's just around 26 years old, but already has a
lot of problems.

~~~
midasz
> who knows if eu will exist in near future

????????????????????

Absolute nonsense. That'd be like saying don't do business with US companies
because they haven't had a functioning government in more than 40 days...

~~~
Cthulhu_
> That'd be like saying don't do business with US companies because they
> haven't had a functioning government in more than 40 days...

40 days is generous, the US's government hasn't functioned in years, if not
decades.

------
matthewmacleod
Honestly my bigger concern is what AWS is going to call eu-west-2 now…

It should generally have been expected that this would happen in line with the
rules. Bit silly, but there we go. Proxy registrants are available.

~~~
scaryclam
The eu part of the aws naming means Europe, not the European union.

~~~
Piskvorrr
Sure. Isn't this datacenter in London, though? Privacy and data retention and
whatnot...FWIW, there seem to be some anecdota of data migrations to Ireland
and Frankfurt, everywhere I bring this question up (except for some British
companies moving their data the opposite way).

------
mothsonasloth
It will be painful for some but let's be honest, who here has seen many high
profile .EU domains floating around?

~~~
skilled
Couldn't think of one...

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
leave.eu

:(

~~~
pgc
The disappearance of that domain is not a bug but a feature! :)

~~~
skilled
:)

------
ahje
Anyone know if British trademarks will be valid in the EU post-Brexit? If not,
this will open up quite a big risk for domain hijackings.

~~~
zaarn
An EU trademark would not be valid in the UK and companies would have to apply
separately for an UK trademark.

The way it works usually (IIRC) is that while the EU trademark is valid in the
entire EU, it isn't an actual trademark in each country and in case the EU
trademark is invalidated you have to apply for a trademark in each country and
each country can challenge your trademark by their laws.

I would then assume that with brexit, since UK is no longer part of the EU,
the EU trademark isn't revoked but seizes to be valid.

~~~
ahje
In other words, easy pickings for anyone who wants to get hold of email
domains with good domain rep in order to use them for spamming.

~~~
alias_neo
It's quite worrying for security; imagine if some API used by some slightly
older code uses an .eu, now someone can go but that domain, issue a trusted
certificate and hijack the system using it.

Of course the risk is no greater than usual but the same could apply for
fraudulent sites popping up.

------
abraae
Pretty funny since a few years ago we bought a .eu domain for our company not
based in Europe, UK or anywhere near.

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yani
This opens the path for a proxy that will register the domains for such
companies and indivisuals. Oh wait such proxy companies already exist.

------
londons_explore
Are they just angling for everyone with a British postal addrrss to Pay a
transfer fee?

------
SeaSeaRider
This would be an unhinged move; essentially deleting domains for political
reasons. Any business doing due-diligence would be forced to move from their
.eu domain.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Political reasons? Yes, the UK is leaving the EU, they do not WANT to be part
of the EU anymore. Letting go of a domain extension is only a small price to
pay in comparison. They can't have their cake and eat it too - leave means
leave. That's 250.000 domains whose owners and (if applicable) personnel had
the option to vote remain.

Of course, they can still move to remain in the EU after all.

~~~
SeaSeaRider
The terrifying thing is that people with your mindset are actually part of the
bureaucracy of the EU. No credible company will keep a .EU domain if they go
ahead with this unhinged plan to delete 250000 domains.

~~~
bkor
> bureaucracy of the EU

The EU is actually quite efficient with its money considering all the things
it does. Probably because loads of things are done centrally instead of
repeated across 27 countries. This despite the stupid continuous moving
between Brussels and Strasbourg.

~~~
robertony
Can you please provide sources for how EU centeralized government is more
efficient with it's money than decenteralized systems used in places like the
Netherlands and the UK?

~~~
bkor
I've said that some things are done on EU level, which does not need to be
repeated across the various countries within the EU. Netherlands is part of
the EU, it doesn't need to repeat those things.

According to
[http://ec.europa.eu/budget/explained/myths/myths_en.cfm](http://ec.europa.eu/budget/explained/myths/myths_en.cfm),
the admin overhead for the budget is about 6%. Amount of people for admin is
about 70k. That's nothing if you compare it to any big city, let alone to a
country.

~~~
robertony
> I've said that some things are done on EU level, which does not need to be
> repeated across the various countries within the EU.

The examples provided on your link are Galileo, business investment and
huamnitarian crises, terrorism and security threats. To be honest, these
aren't very good examples from my understanding.

With Galileo, I'm not sure why leaving it to the ESA exclusively instead of
this shared setup with the EU is better or more 'efficient'.

For business investments, the EU has caused some of the very problems they are
"investing in", including making farmers and fisheries dependent on grants to
operate or just go out of business. The imposed VAT rates and conditions cause
less spending that lead to very situations that require this to start up in
such an environment. With more self autonomy, governments could look to more
effectively focus on industries that are more effective for their geography
and avoid much of the red tape that prevents these industries from being
viable. This does not seem efficient to me.

EU's recent history on humantarian, crises and threats has shown it is lacking
significantly.

Let's take Greece for example, if Greece were operating independently, it
would have been allowed to withdraw from the Euro (which it was prevented from
doing so), moving to it's own currency and then devalue it's currency over the
period of some years which would increase external investment into the
country, floating the country's economy and returning it's economy to
normality, not unlike other countries that suffered a financial crisis not too
long ago, such as Iceland. Instead, they are just funding Greece with no
working plan for recovery, while driving other countries into debt to support
it. This does not seem efficient to me.

The EU completely failed to manage and appropriately deal with the refugee
crisis and economic migrant crisis on the EU level despite it being there. It
was a significant waste of money and then, to further the pain, it tried to
take the work off it self by paying Turkey to deal with it; which is now
blackmailing the EU into providing further funds. This is not efficient and I
think the ECHR should really get more involved in this matter.

Regarding threats, the EU gave a lot of promises and love to Ukraine, annoyed
the Russian bear which now occupies half the country.

> the admin overhead for the budget is about 6%

I'm not seeing the value in return, sorry.

~~~
Piskvorrr
"Regarding threats, Western Europe gave a lot of promises and love to
Czechoslovakia, annoyed the German Reich which now occupies a third of the
country." No historical parallel there, noooosir.

------
C1sc0cat
Not sure I have ever seen a company use a .eu domain - which I suspect was set
up as a vanity project by the eu.

~~~
alias_neo
Probably for the same reason I don't use the .uk aliases I own.

They confuse people, .com, people can deal with, .co.uk people can deal with,
but older and non-technical people can struggle with what is out of the norm
(although not new).

These people, unlike us techies aren't visiting .io domains or .xyx domains.

When I've tried to use .uk sufficient people have understood it to mean .co.uk
that is was a problem.

------
Piskvorrr
That looks rather suspicious. Unsourced, hush-hush secret, share before the
Illuminati delete this!

------
writepub
There are many many proxy registration methods that allow one to buy a domain
in any country, regardless of residency.

For instance, the .it domain is intended for Italian residents, but play.it ,
a CBS owned radio company operates with full complaince.

This is not a loss for Brits, but a breach of trust by the .eu registrar.

Lesson learnt: never register with .eu domain, for their non-business friendly
heavy handedness

~~~
gioele
> For instance, the .it domain is intended for Italian residents

This used to be the case decades ago. Now every resident or business of the EU
can register a .IT domain:
[https://www.nic.it/en/faq#t127n81932](https://www.nic.it/en/faq#t127n81932)

~~~
pgc
The CBS is not European. In fact if you visit [http://play.it](http://play.it)
from Europe, you're in for a surprise.

~~~
ahje
> The CBS is not European. In fact if you visit
> [http://play.it](http://play.it) from Europe, you're in for a surprise.

Registrant Organization: MarkMonitor International Limited

Address: The Johnson Building 77 Hatton Garden London EC1N 8JS GB

Created: 2012-10-24 21:48:52 Last Update: 2016-08-25 19:46:3

~~~
michaelt
The "surprise" in this case is play.it forwards you to radio.com which
displays "This site isn't currently available in the EU"

