Commission to revoke British .eu domains after Brexit | Hacker News Reader

Commission to revoke British .eu domains after Brexit

euractiv.com

70 pointsvinnyglennon116 comments

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.

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.

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.

I feel like they've been quite consistent in their rules-are-rules stance. And the UK has taken the "rules are meant to be broken" stance, which was a risky gamble and showed poor judgment.

This news was a surprise to me, but I wouldn't be further surprised if this procedure is explained in rules that the UK had a hand in drafting.

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.

UK was offered a deal. They've rejected a deal which was pretty extensive and handled loads of things. UK chose to leave, UK got a way better deal than they should, UK rejected it, cake is going away, still is on the EU? Really?

They are not threatening - it's certainly within their rights and within the rule of the law.

I don't see why the EU should show goodwill when every day the British politician tell them to go f%^& themselves. At some point they expect goodwill before extending it.

I'm not entirely surprised you'd feel that way - the British seem to be uniquely self-flagellating on topics of nation and state. But I'm not sure how you can support the European Union actively punishing the _people and businesses_ of the United Kingdom in response to the 'conduct' of the _government_ of the United Kingdom, when you think said government hasn't provided proper representation for their people. Whether the United Kingdom deserves it or not has little bearing on this technically unusual and rather petty decision.

I'm also thoroughly opposed to the idea that the European Union is always strict with its rules. It can be. And it is right to be, particularly in the case human rights. But it's impossible to pretend that there hasn't been gross flouting of rules over the last decade. When the stability of the Euro has been at stake, rules always take second-place.

> And it is right to be, particularly in the case human rights.

The European Convention on Human Rights is not an EU institution. The EU has had problems causing conflict with it, such as with the European Arrest Warrant.

> When the stability of the Euro has been at stake, rules always take second-place.

And when the Euro isn't at stake either, after all, they integrated Greece when it failed the checks and balances, pushing it through anyway.

Ignoring for the moment the insanity of Brexit in the first place, I'm particularly unimpressed that it also includes leaving ECHR. That was never mentioned until much later as the "hard Brexit" madness got going.

The Tories must have forgot it was their beloved Churchill who was a huge advocate for its creation and promoted it from the end of the war and through the 48 Congress of Europe. Atlee's Labour was against it, whilst the Conservatives signed it for the UK in 51 or 52.

I have to agree with your sentiment here. A vote to leave the EU didn't mean leave the ECHR.

To add to your point further, the Good Friday agreement (which brought some peace in Northern Ireland) actually is supposed to bind the UK to the ECHR.

Of course you can support punishing the people and business of the United Kingdom. The government is not a separate entity, it represent the people and businesses of the UK and acts on their behalf. Whether the government properly represents its people is not for the EU to concern itself with, that is a matter between the people and the government.

I assume the internet traditionally lets domains be grandfathered in because it doesn't just 'break' the domain it also 'breaks' all the links to the domains that are no longer eligible. Internet people don't like breaking the hypertext :)

Agreed which is why it's an interesting choice.

> Pretty petty if you ask me. ICANN generally lets things be grandfathered in.

EU membership is not a phone subscription.

Never said it was. I just was saying it's quite different from ICANN policy and plus there are old defunct country code domains which still have domain records even though you can't make new domains records.

It just breaks things like E-Mail, and cause problems such as making phishing more believable since the cTLD is still active. Plus numerous other things. It would have made more sense to block new registration, but it's a cTLD so not entirely governed by ICANN.

Plus I mean petty as in such a small thing to worry about. People who are not in the EU already can use an intermediary. So what's the point of breaking a bunch stuff?

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!

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".

I wonder whether any other trading union in the world would act in such a tyrannical way should one of its members decide it's had enough. Hell hath no fury like the EU spurned. Reminds me of the Soviet union: 'our socialist utopia is so fantastic that we have to shoot anyone that tries to leave'.

Imagine a country leaving a trading block and then acting suprised it doesn't get any of the benefits of being a member of the block.

Really? EU offered deal, British parliament rejected it, on A50 timeout the UK will drop out, as it is apparently trying to. If that is your idea of shooting the leavers...well...I don't think it means what you think it means.

In all, I'm growing increasingly convinced this is a Monty Python sketch: "We want out!" "Ok." "Help, help, we're being oppressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!!!"

Britain is leaving, The EU is now acting in its best interests.

I'm not sure you can read any more into it than that. Yes this does seem unreasonable, I can't think of any other examples where they're being unreasonable though?

I suspect that this will be rather damaging for the .eu TLD. If I were in a country that has a rise in Euroscepticism, right-wing parties while in the EU (which is pretty much most of them now); I wouldn't feel confident in getting a .eu domain and building a business on that anymore.

I see it more as "UK is leaving the EU, so they're losing all their benefits, unless specifically negotiated for".

That's what it should be, but it seems the EU are intentionally being difficult in negotiations.

They want to make life hard for Britain so others that have been considering leaving, think again.

> That's what it should be, but it seems the EU are intentionally being difficult in negotiations.

The biggest cause is that EU with 500 representing million people has a way better negotiating position. Further, UK really needs to have a deal or they'll be really bad off. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_alternative_to_a_negotiat.... UK has almost no leverage, EU does.

In a negotiation you're not entitled to anything. If the cost is 1 MUSD and the seller knows you're so desperate you'll buy it for 150 MUSD then that's what the price will be (or higher).

More in detail, one of the issues is the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Meaning the Good Friday Agreement. UK wants to ignore the problem. This while Ireland has veto rights on any deal offered by the EU.

The Ireland problem is certainly an issue, our government also doesn't seem to be aiming for a deal that suits many of us.

I'm a European, British born and bread and the Union is a good thing.

I'm angry that the vote went the way it did, because my generation and our children will be picking up this mess.

But I don't blame the British people, I blame our government for not educating us on what the vote meant, what the consequences were, and less forgivable, for using FUD and propoganda to sway the vote in favour of leaving.

What would you consider "not making it difficult"?

Full membership rights, with zero membership duties, it seems; and the right to reenter and reexit any damn number of times. Anything less is "punishing the UK". HMG seems to be under the impression that the whole thing is some kind of cat door.

I'm honestly not sure, but the problem is compounded by a government that hasn't got the skills to negotiate the right deal, May's deal does not suit us, and ~50% of us didn't want to leave in the first place.

I voted for remain, I've never sides with a need to divide and build "walls". I have my opinion on the kind of people that voted to leave, but I'm a filthy millennial, so what do I know.

I should shut up and do what I'm told by the boomers and the Xers before they pop it and leave this mess to me and my children.

A lot of them have complaints about what EU is doing to this country with its laws etc, but the unveiling to listen when I tell them about the laws EU has passed that have been good for us, even protected is as a people from our own government.

I understand you are frustrated, but I just dont understand the opinion that says that the EU is somehow punishing or making it hard for the UK during Brexit. I would really want to know what you would expect.

Generally if you(as a country) decide to leave a club, you cannot keep drinking the mojitos that are available inside.

There are a lot of things that came through EU membership to the UK, but these things cannot stay if the UK does not want to be inside the EU. The only way to keep some of the benefits is to negotiate with the EU. And some benefits are just not able to be separated from others. Like freedom of movement with the single market.

Im interested in seeing what the UK decides to do in the next two months. What kind of consensus between the MPs is going to be found? (or maybe none at all?)

It's just how I understand what I've been "told". From the news we get, were made to believe that certain EU states are being "hard", harder than necessary for these negotiations. Or at least that was the case a year or two ago, I've lost track of how long this debacle had been ongoing. It doesn't help that we have a government that is incapable of negotiating their way out of a paper bag.

My frustrations are very little about other EU states, who I don't blame, but since our government doesn't have our best interests at heart, it'd be nice if they remembered that 50% of us didn't agree on a vote 0% of us called for in the first place.

I can't see our MPs coming to an agreement, they're divided, they want May out, but there is no suitable replacement. Corbyn couldn't do a better job, his heart is in the right place but he's equally incapable of sorting this out.

At this point I'm jaded by the whole thing and I see no positive outcome, every day we read about major business leeching the country, that's jobs and money leaving with them, and frankly, I don't believe 2019 Britian has a lot to offer in trade.

Next our NHS will be privatised, and the best thing we'll have to offer is our lovely weather.

I mean the EU States very much remember. I dont know of a single state that has less than said that British people that are in the EU currently are still going to be welcome after Brexit. No matter what happens with the British government.

It looks like British people wont be able to freely travel inside the EU anymore after Brexit, but are free to stay indefinitely wherever they are at the point of Brexit.

So the only thing I can say is, you are welcome here. If you want to come and work with us, come.

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.

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.

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?

They are letting Britain leave, it's happening on the 29th March. What they are being tough on is what happens after that, because Britain is currently a big economy that EU businesses have a lot of fingers in pies in.

> 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.

If a member leaves the EU they're not getting the benefits anymore of being part of the EU. It's mainly the UK who has no idea at all at what they want.

Various statements made by the EU 2 years ago still hold true. If you read UK press it seems everything is negotiable. The difference in attitude and the bad coverage by both UK press as well as UK government is pretty bad.

The issue, I think, irrespective of the press, is that May is not fit to negotiate a suitable deal, the people want a people's vote, because there is currently no suitable replacement.

What kind of person would be more suited to negotiate a deal? And what did the people vote for? Wasn't it just "Remain" or "Leave"? There was zero intellectual thought put into any of this. It's on the UK that this realization comes when it's inconvenient.

Would the EU bend the rules if a different person was at the table? Or would they simply say the same? There is no incentive for the EU to give back / bend their rules. I don't know why people expected that.

I got the exact opposite impression over time: so far, the EU's stance has been the more reasonable of both sides. You can't have your cake and eat it, as they say.

I had actually hoped for a tougher approach, to be honest.

But this would just punish the people who are most affected. And in this regard, the EU's side is, again, the more generous. E.g., most member states are putting in effort to make things as painless as they can for British expats. The British government, on the other side, is hanging them out dry.

This is most definitely not official. Until the Brexit Deal/No Deal/2nd referendum/whatever_this_week gets finalized no one is in a position to make this kind of judgement call.

I also wonder how this is going to play out with the GDPR -- "We can't tell you who has eu domains in the UK because it would violate privacy laws but we are sure we have deleted them"?

EURid stands to lose a fortune and the .EU domain would become pretty toxic after this so I can see some very motivated people taking every step they can to avoid this.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.su

In Soviet Russia domain own you!

The British foreign minister did say the EU was the same as the USSR, so maybe they inherited the domain.

ICANN wanted to withdraw that, but Russia asked to keep it.

This case is different, because it's not about whether .eu should exist, or who controls it - that part is not under dispute. It's about the owners of .eu deciding who can own subdomains in it.

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

https://eurid.eu/en/register-a-eu-domain/brexit- notice/

There's a stray space in your link.

https://eurid.eu/en/register-a-eu-domain/brexit-notice/

> https://eurid.eu/en/register-a-eu-domain/brexit- notice/

Try https://eurid.eu/en/register-a-eu-domain/brexit-notice/

to avoid a 404

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.

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

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.

> 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...

> 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.

I don't know what Europe would look like without the EU. I'd say in the coming years the stability of it will be tested thoroughly. The countries that are calling the shots (namely France and Germany and their lapdogs) will be tested, too.

OK I'll bite - who are their "lapdogs"

Countries like the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria...

Hah ok dude

The EU is the successor to the EEC (1957) and ECSC (1951).

I mean, looking at the state of things I'd say it's more likely the US will be annexed by Russia before the EU goes away.

Oh - I thought that had already happened.

Don’t know why you are getting downvoted, eu-hostile populist parties are on the rise everywhere in Europe. If your business depends critically on a domain, I think not relying on a .eu domain is a common sense precaution to take. And it doesn’t matter what the next election polls are. You are still going to depend on your domain in 10 or 15 years.

> eu-hostile populist parties are on the rise everywhere in Europe

Populist parties are on the rise, and many of them have made anti-EU noises in the past. However, with Brexit, they've got very quiet about leaving the EU.

If Brexit does go ahead, I expect it will be sufficiently unpleasant that no-one else will want to leave.

I wouldn't be too sure, some countries might get kicked out - Greece was at risk of that for a while. It's precarious. And there's a big power on the east who would love to see the EU (and the US) destabilize.

The UK would fall apart even further after the Brexit; there's likely to be another Scottish referendum and they're likely to leave the UK and rejoin the EU.

> some countries might get kicked out

I don't think this is particularly likely, because the EU doesn't want more countries leaving. Maybe Hungary will, but only if Orban goes completely off the rails.

> there's likely to be another Scottish referendum and they're likely to leave the UK and rejoin the EU.

Wouldn't surprise me at all. What happens in the UK depends on how chaotic the Brexit process gets.

> Greece was at risk of that for a while.

Greece actually campaigned for it and the EU imposed more austerity instead.

we lost enough money to Merkels' and the Deutsche Bank's shenanigans* that we'd still come on par leaving.

*like creating the condition for, aggravating and then arbitrating the Greece crisis; like creating a huge slowdown on good consumption driving inflation with quantitative easing; like bargaining with france to turn an eye down their own violations of the stability pact while imposing restriction on anyone else.

the EEC was a great idea. the EU, not so much. it's about time it gets soundly reformed.

some sources

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2870055/France-and-Germa... https://www.dw.com/en/most-of-greek-bailout-money-went-to-ba... https://www.theguardian.com/business/economics-blog/2016/sep...

If you're a startup, this is bikeshedding on par with worrying about the heat death of the Universe.

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.

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

Amazing how many people don’t understand the difference!

Okay, lame joke – but I'm both aware of that, and know that even if it weren't the case it wouldn't have to change.

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).

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

Couldn't think of one...

leave.eu

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

gdpr.eu

Just one example: GoDaddy bought the HostEurope group for €1.6B [1]. They own one of the largest domain-registers (and cloud providers) in the DACH region called Domainfactory. They reside on df.eu

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_Europe_Group

For what it's worth, here are the unique .eu domains linked to on HN during the last two weeks, along with an example HN page:

europa.eu (the most often posted .eu domain) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18979027 . This is the "Official website of the European Union"

sifted.eu - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18958342 . This is "The new media platform backed by the Financial Times".

juliareda.eu - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18943510 . This is the site of a Member of the European Parliament from Germany, who is also a member of the Pirate Party Germany.

jsconf.eu - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18912059 . "JSConf EU is the labour-of-love conference for the JavaScript community in Europe"

elixirconf.eu - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18865236 . "ElixirConf EU is the premiere Elixir conference in Europe"

5gobservatory.eu - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18980769 . This is an organization directed by the European Commission.

This was all done manually. Someone else might automate the task.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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?

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, 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.

> 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.

"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.

It states in the first section of the Domain Name Registration Policy that you are eligible to register a .eu domain if you have an organisation or are a natural person that is registered in the EU or a country that has an agreement with the EU. Leaving the EU will cancel the eligibility to register or maintain an .eu domain. So i really do not know why the EU is the bad guy in this scenario.

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.

I think it's mostly being used by European institutions, but there are notable exceptions like http://leave.eu a pro-Brexit campaign which would lose its domain (the irony).

I see a fair number of them - mostly by mid-sized European manufacturing companies. The rationale seems to be "Where's sprockets.at? Who knows? (Austria btw) sprockets.eu? Probably in the EU." Usually there's a local country domain as well, with one of them being canonical.

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.

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

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

> the .it domain is intended for Italian residents

Do they have a TOS? Because there is a difference between 'intended' and actual rules. And by using those 'proxy companies' you're still breaking the rules but just being sneaky about it.

> a breach of trust by the .eu registrar

Really? So because they actually enforce their rules they are 'breaching trust'? You can't get away with breaking the rules so you just crawl into the victim role? Absolute nonsense.

https://eurid.eu/media/filer_public/76/48/7648e621-0c5d-4c09...

In this first step the Registrant must verify whether it meets the General Eligibility Criteria, whereby it must be:

(i) an undertaking having its registered office, central administration or principal place of business within the European Union, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein, or

(ii) an organisation established within the European Union, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein without prejudice to the application of national law, or

(iii) a natural person resident within the European Union, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein.

At the time of registering, all those eligibility criteria were met.

It isn't unreasonable to let current registrations run their course.

Not really. Trade agreements were also made when the UK was in the EU. It doesn't make sense to let them run their course either? Why so lenient? Choosing to leave a club that allows for certain things is ok, but it's inane to be outraged about not keeping those things when you leave.

My passport says European Union on it, does that suddenly become invalid?

I don't expect to be able to get a passport with EU on it for ever, I expect to able to carry on using the one I already have though.

I'm sure there are many contracts negotiated between British and EU organisations, under EU law. Should those contracts be ripped up? Renegotiated under British law?

That loan that a German company took out from a British bank under EU banking regs. Is that agreement null and void?

Both parties lose even more if this turns into a petty tit for tat.

> My passport says European Union on it, does that suddenly become invalid?

The passport itself does not become invalid

> I don't expect to be able to get a passport with EU on it for ever, I expect to able to carry on using the one I already have though.

Sure, however you wouldn't be able to enter Schengen like you do now. You'd be a "third country national" and be treated as such. Instead of "European Union" it could say "Loves Pasta" and it'd carry the same legal weight.

> I'm sure there are many contracts negotiated between British and EU organisations, under EU law. Should those contracts be ripped up? Renegotiated under British law?

I'd guess so, since they were based on a different situation. They probably didn't account for a situation where there was no free-trade and such.

> That loan that a German company took out from a British bank under EU banking regs. Is that agreement null and void?

Wholly depends. They'd probably have to renegotiate the regs.

> Both parties lose even more if this turns into a petty tit for tat.

How is it a petty tit for tat? This is the reality of leaving the EU. I get the feeling brexiteers want all the pro's but none of the con's. It simply cannot work that way. "Why are they being so mean?", it isn't being mean. It's simply a consequence everyone could've known before this shit-show started.

"We don't want member duties, we want out out out!" "Ok, here's a deal that still leaves you limited rights similar to membership ones, for far fewer duties." "We're not your colony, out out out!" "Sure, we can start from scratch, but you won't get any special treatment meanwhile." "What, no favors? Why this petty tit for tat?"

Nearly half the UK population voted to remain. Its quite possible for the 52% to have a view (however incoherent), and I and the other 48% to have a differing view.

If you want to claim that the UK and the EU won't be worse off if we get in to a petty tit for tat, then fine, we can have that discussion.

Please don't start adding my comments into quotes I disagree with, and views I don't hold.

> 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

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

> The CBS is not European. In fact if you visit 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

London? That won't be Europe after Brexit. Seems to me like a lot of people will be in for a surprise.

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

I get a redirect to https://www.radio.com/audio and " This site isn't currently available in the EU "

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