Slashdot Mirror
European Commission Says It Will Cancel All 300,000 UK-Owned .EU Domains (theregister.co.uk)
Brexit has hit the internet, and not in a good way. From a report: In an official statement Thursday, the European Commission announced it will cancel all 300,000 domains under the .eu top-level domain that have a UK registrant, following Britain's eventual departure from the European Union. "As of the withdrawal date, undertakings and organizations that are established in the United Kingdom but not in the EU and natural persons who reside in the United Kingdom will no longer be eligible to register .eu domain names," the document states, adding, "or if they are .eu registrants, to renew .eu domain names registered before the withdrawal date." Going even further, the EC suggested that existing .eu domains might be cancelled the moment Brexit happens -- expected to be 366 days from now -- with no right of appeal.
It's too late, they already initiated the withdrawal. It happens now regardless. The only thing left to do is negotiate some type of trade agreement if possible.
To get back into the EU the UK would have to make some major concessions, including adopting the EU currency. I'd imagine the rest of the EU would extract a pretty penny from the UK to be let back in and they'd always be a second class member afterwards unlike the first class founding member they were before leaving.
No, Brexit is happening, there's no turning back and it's going to hurt the UK far more than the Brexit campaigners claimed. The UK is likely to lose half their banking industry to this.
No, the UK could go back if they wished. The brit rebate by "I want my money back!" Thatcher however wouldn't be reinstated. That would probably be the main concession demanded by the others. Basically, no more special circumstances for the UK, they have to be a member like any other which there were not anymore for many years. So it would cost the UK a lot monetarily to go back. The Euro is a non-issue. No one would force them to join it.
The problem however is not money in any form, it's UK politics. It would kill the tories, split them up basically. And of course would sink PM May.
The UK is no founding member of anything. They joined the EU in 1973 or so. Very much a Jonny come lately. Founding members of what became today's EU were Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany in 1957 in Rome. This morphed into the 1967 "European Communities" which is what the UK joined in 1973 together with Denmark and Ireland.
TLD admin organizations can set whatever rules they like. Some countries allow anyone to register, some require them to be resident. The EU is one of the latter.
So once outside the EU, naturally they will not suspend the rules for the UK unless the UK negotiated that as part of the post-brexit deal. Since the UK has a very weak position and desperately needs things like financial service access that are near impossible to get, .EU domains are going to be way down that list of things to ask for.
Plus, the UK would have to contribute to the registra operating costs, which would just further annoy Brexiteers.
By the way, the EU is not a shadow government or unelected.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Brexiteers assume all rules were designed to punish the UK. Even the ones we wrote, like Article 50, are just an EU plot to frustrate Brexit.
It's not just ccTLDs either. Today the EU confirmed that we would lose access to the Galileo satellite navigation system. We could negotiate access to some service/manufacturing contacts, but all secrets like military decryption keys would be off limits. As any sensible person would expect.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC