British-owned .EU domains may be turned off on Brexit | Hacker News Reader

British-owned .EU domains may be turned off on Brexit

dot-eu-is-going.uk

58 pointseicnix58 comments

previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16714581

Newspaper editors, thank me later:

EU: "leave.eu to leave .eu", leaving .eu to EU

The document [1] that it all hinges off doesn't say that it will all be turned off on exit day but says that post-exit if you have an .eu domain and you no longer meet the eligibility criteria then you won't be able to renew it (section 1 of document 1).

For individual registrants, it hinges off residency, not nationality. So if you are British but resident in the EU you are fine as long as you are using your non-UK address to register. If you are a citizen of an EU country but registered with your UK address then you'll also be caught up.

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/notice_to_stakeho...

This is one of those cases where German rigidity shows so well. Yes, strictly speaking, .eu is for EU only. On the other hand, the scenario of a country leaving EU was never before tested. Instead of sticking rigorously to the letter in the .eu regulations, how about revisiting the regulation? Nope, that's not the procedure.

(Disclaimer: I'm an EU citizen living in the UK, and I obviously don't like the whole Brexit happening. Due to this I moved my UK hosted .eu domain back to Hungary. On the other hand, if the new EU copyright proposal passes, I'll join the Brexit camp.)

There is zero incentive for any EU country to be flexible with the UK exiting the EU, as that would incentivise even more disruption. If you cancel your membership at a club, you shouldn't expect to maintain some membership benefits of said club, no matter how small they may be.

This (and many more) effects were clear to anyone wishing to look into them before the Brexit vote, and so nothing is happening that couldn't have easily been anticipated.

As a side note, I don't believe that the Brexit decision is legal under UK law, as it's a parliamentary democracy, and as such the referendum was non binding. For a decision like this to be made, parliament has to vote on it, and as far as I'm aware, parliament has done no such thing yet.

> As a side note, I don't believe that the Brexit decision is legal under UK law, as it's a parliamentary democracy, and as such the referendum was non binding. For a decision like this to be made, parliament has to vote on it, and as far as I'm aware, parliament has done no such thing yet.

well you haven't been paying much attention then, as Parliament voted to allow the Government to invoke Article 50 in early 2017

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2017/9/pdfs/ukpga_201700...

These people would disagree... https://twitter.com/a50challenge

Can someone summarize what are their arguments?

(I'm not a lawyer, nor am I member of that group.)

Essentially, the referendum was advisory, an interpretation confirmed by the Miller case. The act passed in response to that case does not include a clear decision to leave the EU. Thus, the Article 50 notification made in 2017 was not in compliance the UK constitutional requirements.

> There is zero incentive for any EU country to be flexible with the UK exiting the EU

Millions of non British EU citizens living in the UK would likely beg to differ

How is that an incentive?

No they wouldn't. The EU standing up for them - which it does - is the only way they will have more rights than any other migrant worker from around the world. Being flexible would mean abandoning them to get some trade-only, no-free-movement deal.

"If you cancel your membership at a club, you shouldn't expect to maintain some membership benefits of said club, no matter how small they may be."

When you cancel your membership at a club, they should not hold you hostage for arbitrary crazy fees: see 100 Billion fantasy Euros invented out of thin air by European nations on 'Brexit bill'

Also free trade benefits both parties. It's not a club you pay dues to.

NAFTA is the world's largest customs union that requires no 'freedom of movement' and no 'fees' for membership.

If the .eu domain is a 'benefit' of 'membership', well then surely the EU can keep that.

But punishing the UK by forgoing a decent trade deal reveals the EU to be the 'bad deal' that it is. That they would need to 'punish' parties for leaving - to the detriment of everyone is crazy. Remember that everyone will pay more for UK goods and UK purchaser orders from EU countries will fall. Nobody wins but the elites in Bruxells trying to maintain their barely arbitrary hold on power.

E. Europe is on a tear, Italy just elected an EU hostile government, Germany and the ECB overthrew a previous government in Italy (and Greece), nationalist are in in Austria, Denmark, basically Norway, and on the rise in Sweden, Finland and Germany - and the entire world's press had to rally around a nobody to keep the FN down in France ... while EU's 2cnd strongest economy flees and the Euro oppresses Southern European states ...

And EU leaders are still not listening ...

The EEC was great, and EU has some nice ideals but the elite there are utterly and completely out of touch, and it's not going to work. Deep fiscal integration is not possible (Greece, Sweden, Spain et. al. to agree on pensions, benefits, retirement and healthcare spending? Never ...) meaning that the Euro itself is untenable (creators of the Euro knew it needed fiscal integration in order to work).

Consider EU's fear of offering UK a 'good trade deal' - then others might want that as well, right? Well then why not give everyone that!. If everyone wants a more commercial relationship, probably with some nice friendly border and citizenship stuff ... then why not have that? The 'fear' is having a Europe that Europeans want ... but that is not the EU? And that's a bad thing how?

It's time for the EU to take a look in the mirror, this much is obvious. If they had the ability to bend with the times, there would be no Brexit, there would be no big right-wing uptick.

There are plenty of incentives to punish Britain and British citizens and companies, not only zero incentives to be "flexible".

Withdrawing .eu domains works both as a last-minute threat to prevent Brexit and as revenge and compensation in case Brexit goes through. At the very least, Britain shall be made an example of.

UK will still need to work with other countries including those in the 27. The 27 will still want to cooperate with UK, so club analogy not strictly accurate, more like leaving a shared house and moving into the empty flat next door.

Isn't there a precedent that we don't break urls on the Web? I think I remember top level country domains persisting after the countries changed?

Between GDPR, the copyright directive, and now this, it's pretty clear that the stable operation of the internet is not really considered to be in the EU's interests.

There is a common sense incentive along the lines of if they are nice to us and we'll be nice to them. For example the UK has agreed to a £40bn or so divorce bill but could tell the EU to get lost and not pay in the event of no deal. Plus how they treat EU folk wanting to work in the UK after Brexit could vary and so on.

Does disagreeing with a single (admittedly shitty) law really mean you would align with Brexit? What a terrible situation Europe is slipping into.

How should he respond instead? Complacency?

Does the average American respond to a stupid law by campaigning for secession?

Like leaving NAFTA? Yes, yes they do.

Well my hometown has an actual armed separatist militia over California banning .50 cals....so to answer you question: definitely.

Also try talking to any Texan outside of Austin.

It's not for me to prescribe the response, I am genuinely curious about how close to the line people who dislike Brexit are. Living in the EU, how close are people feeling to saying 'fuck it, let's do it live' and just winging it like the UK is preparing to do?

Personally, if you are interested, I feel like Brexit leaves everyone worse off overall. The UK will continue to implement just as stupid up-tight fear laws and stifle creativity and productivity in exchange for perceived 'safety'. The EU's copyright proposal is bad, but Theresa May's approach to solving the UK's perceived moral and ethnic threats is likely worse.

False dichotomy perhaps. One can be pro-Brexit while not liking Theresa May’s government’s handling of the mandate.

I honestly don't know how a pro-Brexit government could be anything but unfavourable. Brexit is born out of small minded nationalism. The people who voted for it did so in fear of 'other', the people who promoted it were liars and shysters who have pretty nefarious agendas.

I do get your point though, I think my mind is just clouded with disappointment and a feeling of loss for my country of origin and all my friends and family who live there.

I won’t respond to an ad hominem. But I would suggest giving an alternative position the benefit of doubt in assuming there are legitimate reasons to hold that view and investigate what they might be.

Tell me, what supposition(s) would have you believe EU-exit to be the correct choice? If you are engaging honestly you should have an answer for that.

For an EU exit to be an agreeable choice, well at the risk of being drawn into an argument based on inappropriately simplified premisses, but here goes...

To exit the EU I think a fundamental member nation like the UK would need to observe, without cynicism, that the EU was somehow now incompatible with the UK's long-term socio-economic plans.

The UK would then need to make a thorough exit plan that demonstrably showed, again without cynicism, how the UK and its people would prosper and continue to support its allies and uphold it's principles and commitments.

This plan would then need to be proposed to the people in clear terms, without bias, without a marketing budget in an engaged bipartisan, honest manner.

In this day and age it really is not hard to see what is wrong with politics. It's so easy to imagine a 'better' way of doing almost anything. There is far too much polarity, one-upmanship, ego, self serving, and down-right 'fuck you' to the opposition. Trump and others literally fuck over the previous incumbent's changes just for the status and message it sends. Almost nothing is done for 'the people', everything is done for show and status. There simply is no substance any more.

Thank you for responding! Too few people have the courage to actually evaluate what would make them change their minds. Kudos to you for doing so.

I agree for the most part. And to be clear I’m not a British citizen so I don’t have a strong stake in this, but I am a EU skeptic and it bugs me when people assert that the Brexit position must be mentally deranged or some such. That’s a rhetorical cheap shot that speaks to the base instead of contributing to conversation.

With my Brexit hat on, I think we agree in spirit. I think the Leave movement DOES feel that the EU is and has been for some time moving against the long term interests of the UK. I even agree with this view myself.

However I think the thresholds you set for moving on it are too high and too optimistic. Politicians didn’t want Brexit, and those same politicians would be the ones responsible for creating such a plan. It’s not like you or I can negotiate with the EU terms for Brexit without the UK government’s participation. And that wasn’t going to happen. You clearly have your own cynicism, I just think you need to extend it to both sides of an issue. And that’s being realistic, not cynical :)

The mistake that was made, I feel, was in letting this be decided by a simple majority. They should have used a 3/5 or 2/3 threshold instead.

I agree with the `3/5 or 2/3 threshold instead` threshold, absolutely. You also understand that the referendum was never legally binding, if the politicians really didn't want to do exit the EU they could have deferred an exit, got a better deal, or just do nothing at all. The reality is, there was considerable wheel greasing to get Brexit moving through as quickly as possible once the Leave vote was in.

To be clear, many UK euro skeptics exist in parliament and are delighted with the vote [1]. That's a recent article but as far back as I can remember (1980/90s) the Tory Eurosceptics particularly have disliked Europe in principle. And the vote leave campaign was basically a quasi-coup conducted by the Eurosceptics fronted by Boris Johnson (MP) who is essentially a public school version of Trump.

Essentially D.Cameron said to his Eurosceptic members 'if I get in we'll have a vote'[2], and it backfired - the Eurosceptics mislead the public, he lost and had to resign and they got May into government without anyone even having to vote for her. In the face of such machinations you have to give me a pass on my own cynicism, it's hard to have any good faith confronted with such dishonest nonsense.

To say politicians didn't want Brexit is really misunderstanding a fundamental element of the UK's socio-political climate.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/09/tory-mps-br... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Union_...

You could be, for example, remember that the UK already had a internet filtering program which forced ISPs to monitor all the content shared by users within the UK, and the UK government was forced to withdraw it because it was incompatible with the EU Charter of fundamental rights. Yes, that same charter that is going to be repelled after the Brexit.

Exactly. Thinking that the UK without the EU is going to do any better is either naive or willingly ignorant.

With people like May at the helm the UK is already well on its way to a special episode of Black Mirror.

warning: heavily political and opinionated content below.

Due to it's tiny size in land, I believe Europe should be a single country. I still believe in the idea of EU: what it stands for, what it means.

However, the past couple of years have been terrible. The whole Brexit vote only gone through because one can't fight lies with logic and nobody from the Remain side realised this. (Yes, lies, admitted by Leave campaign faces, see morning TV interview the next morning). Everyone sat back, completely ignorant to the option that people will believe those who show up in their village halls with a speech, even if it's mostly made up. The whole reaction of the EU to Brexit is that Britain made and idiotic decision and the EU will not bend due to this. Divorces happen, sometimes it's stupid, like in this case, but that doesn't mean the sides need to be assholes towards each other.

Apart from Brexit, there is still no central response or governing to the immigration through the Mediterranean and it's been a serious problem for years; it gave enough ground for the Hungarian governing party to build a hate driven election campaign around it and win with it.

And than suddenly that complete madness copyright law idea pops up.

This is not the EU I voted to join as a Hungarian in 2004. I might have been under-informed, and the EU might always have been like this, but if it does, something needs to change.

So, answering your question: no, one law is not enough. It's a long series of "wth?" reaction from my side, including no decision decisions, stiff attitude, pitiful procedures like .eu termination, which goes way beyond mere politics - think of personal domains -, and genuinely bad law ideas. Enough of these can drive someone away from an originally beautiful and invaluable union.

I don't even get why .EU domains should be restricted to EU residents.

The domain is for EU residents, what's strange about that?

May I suggest you complain about .edu domains being just for US higher education instead, and no other institutes in the entire world?

Most countries are laid back about who uses their domains. The popular .io is British Indian Ocean Territory for example.

I just clicked somewhat randomly six times on the wikipedia list of top level domain and can report the following numbers:

Available to anyone: 3

Some local connection required: 2

Unclear: 1

"I want to eat my cake and have it too!"

>... German rigidity shows

And what has Germany to do with this?

Apparently some brexiters are convinced that everything wrong with Brexit is some evil Germans' fault, who control the EU in the shadows and want to take revenge for WWII.

Of all the people/companies I worked with, the only two with stick-to-the-word-no-exceptions attitude were Japanese and Germans, hence the phrase.

It wasn't intended to be offensive, sometimes those rigid procedures save lives, and it's very much possible the whole idea has nothing to do with a single German.

Sorry for my wording.

Maybe there needs to be a tld for Europe that is not mean the European Union. ".euro" or ".europe".

Does this make any sense? Years now companies like bit.ly used to get tlds from other countries just to make a nice sounding word. How is .eu any different? BTW I personally find .eu tld tasteless.

Each TLD can set their own requirements. For example, .edu domains are only available to educational institutions, .mobi requires you to have a mobile website, etc.

Wow that would be terrible news to wake up to.

I've been advising UK colleagues to avoid .eu and other EU ccTLDs for domains recently specifically for this reason. Even if it is possible to buy them now, what happens at renewal? Even simple things like cross-border taxes could be a hindrance.

Too much uncertainty as to whether the UK will be receive a 'Swiss pass' or not. Actually .ch is a good stable ccTLD.

Do you have .io domains? If so, you need to get rid of them now because the status of the British Indian Ocean Territory is a lot less clear than the status of any EU country.

I don't know anyone personally with .io mainly due to the price and obscurity.

I do know people that have moved from privately-run TLDs like .info and .space to the Big Three or .uk after huge price increases. That was messy.

For all the failings of UK law it does still require a court order to seize a .uk domain. Back that primary domain with a less-catchy .com or .net for infrastructure and you have a stable, price-reslient arrangement.

I struggle to think of any business or important organisation that relies on .EU for its identity and operations - the only ones I've seen use it are political campaigns.

Presumably the answer is to just use a proxy register based in the EU, if this even becomes an issue?

Here is a real business (albeit an Estonian one): https://www.leapin.eu/

But still not in the UK or affected by these changes.

I have the bad luck of setting a company up in Ireland and thinking I might relocate it to the UK at some point, so I set it up with a .eu domain. It was also easier to get a .eu domain since a .ie requires more paperwork to prove you are actually in Ireland. We did relocate the company to the UK, but now the UK is relocating itself out of .eu so now we have to change the business e-mail addresses.

As far as EU is concerned, you voted Leave and you deserve much worse than changing your email addresses.

Approx 74% of the British population didn't vote to leave, probably including the poster above. Also at the time of the vote the majority of eligible voters probably didn't want to leave as the non voters polled about 60-40 remain. Still our government seem to think "the will of the people" must be rammed through even if it's not what most of the actual people wanted or now want and will cost goodness knows how many billions.

The democratic answer is that

1) Non voters chose to go fuck themselves, please avoid counting them in formally correct but delusional statistics.

2) If you really cared about the issue you should have done your best to convince someone to vote Remain.

Of course I feel sorry, and I agree that a better government could or should try to reverse Brexit (for example, with a new referendum or with Scotland-related excuses), but you also voted the Conservative party (and worse) for parliament; see 1 and 2 above.

How about the European Union, at europa.eu?

My employer's database has a few hundred email addresses ending .eu. The vast majority are scientific institutions, local government, or EU institutions.

Well, the EU aren't leaving the EU, are they? So far as I'm aware, no local government in the UK uses .EU as they're on the .GOV.UK SLD.

Some people seem to be missing the context of my point, so I'll re-state that I'm struggling to think of any UK-based business or important organisation that relies on .EU. Non-UK users of .EU aren't germane to the issue here. Even pointing out examples of users isn't really relevant: I don't claim that there are no users - just that I struggle to think of any [UK-based].

https://www.brisk2.eu/ or https://www.structuralbiology.eu/ are the kind of thing, but UK-based European Union science projects have much more to worry about from Brexit than their domain name.

I don't think there are many businesses that want to show they're European, which probably means they're fairly large, but don't also want local websites for each country they operate in.

There are a few British businesses like hauliers and removal companies using the domain, but none big enough to be called "important".

https://www.airnewzealand.eu/ is one example. https://www.flyturkmenistanairlines.eu/ too.

According to this, there are over 300,000 UK registrations of .EU domains: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/10-years-...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com