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.

Comments

Petty.

[MachineShedFred]

Is it just me, or does this seem fairly petty and petulant? Yeah, sure, the UK won't be in the Eurozone any more, but all you're doing is (in the best case) generating revenue by making all those domain owners re-register with addresses in continental Europe, and inviting a land rush for speculators and scammers in the worst case.

Seems pretty stupid.

Re:Petty.

[Joce640k]

Rules is rules.

They voted to leave, they've got nothing coming.

Who voted to what?

[SuperKendall]

Not all of the people in the UK voted to leave. But way to make them realize they should have, by childishly having an un-elected shadow government steal a bunch of domains.

This action makes me think less of the EU, which I had thought was impossible.

Re:Who voted to what?

[thaylin]

your country voted to leave, it is something you should h ave seen coming, as you will no longer be legally eligible for the domain, trying to have your cake and eat it too so to speak

Re:Who voted to what?

[AmiMoJo]

The EU TLD is for sites based in the EU. The idea is to give EU citizens confidence that it is an EU site operating under EU rules on things like privacy.

Since the point of brexit is supposed to be ditching those rules and leaving the EU, it makes no sense to allow UK entities to have EU domains.

If the UK wants to negotiate access and agrees to abide by the rules, fine. But the UK doesn't want that. Agreeing to the rules is one of the government's red lines, although so far they have not meant much.

Re:Who voted to what?

[serviscope_minor]

What kind of fucking moron cares about the "EU's best interest?"

Well, the extant members of the EU for one.

If you don't like the rules of a club and decide to leave and stop paying your fees, you can't really complain when you can't use the gym any more. Or the pool. and the sauna's off limits too. Yep and the sports massage even though you had to pay extra for it.

Oh and you also don't get the affiliate discounts at the loca supermarket either.

SERIOUSLY HOW THE FUCK IS THAT A SURPRISE TO ANYONE???

"we" (ha!) voted to leave, now the people who voted to do so are throwing a total shit fit about not getting al the cool shit we got as members. .eu domains are for members of the EU, end of. Not members and random whiny hangers on. Just members.

Re: Who voted to what?

[serviscope_minor]

So they got a lot of the headaches of being in the EU, while missing a lot of the benefits.

No bollocks to that. We benefitted pheomenally from being in the EU.

it is also to the benefit of the people of the EU to make an example of Britain, to make it as painful as possible for them, to discourage anyone else from leaving, because every time any country leaves, all the other countries are worse off.

They're not even doing that. There's no need to do that. Just letting us leave, and by leave, I mean you know leave where we don't get all the stuff we had before---just letting us leave is more than bad enough.

they don't need to make an example of; we're making a fine example of ourselves without any assistance.

Re:Who voted to what?

[serviscope_minor]

The current domain holders should be grandfathered

Oh they should, should they?

Why? The rules specifically state that owners must be in the EU (plus Norway etc).

It was an obvious consequence of Brexit that we would lose access to this. Because it's in the fucking rules of the registrar which are public.

Getting pissy because you didn't bother to figure out what actually leaving meant before voting leave isn't going to help. If you voted against your own interests out of ignorance and stupidity it's not the EU's fault or their job to fix it for you, especially when you're determined not to lift a finger to fix it for yourself.

That's you in the general sense, not you specifically since IIRC you are in fact American.

Re:Who voted to what?

[Freischutz]

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.

The EU does not have to punish the UK for leaving, Brexit is a completely self-punishing exercise. Still, it amuses me how the Brexiteers manage to cast every consequence of Brexit as unfair punishment, persecution and dispossession. Just changing the context a bit brings out their irrational entitlement complexes: I'm leaving the golf club and now I'm no longer allowed to make use of club discounts, UNFAIR!!! I'm leaving the golf club and now I'm no longer allowed to get free golf lessons, PUNISHMENT!!! I'm leaving the golf club and now I'm no longer allowed to play their courses for free, BULLYING!! Now for most of us these would be natural and normal consequences of leaving the golf club, to a Brexiteer these are violations of his/her fundamental human rights. The average Brexiteers attitude can be summed up in three words: .... BWAAAAAAH!!! ... BABY WANT!!!