> They lose domain registration revenue.

But in the other scenario, they now have to deal with support queries ("why can they have a .eu when I can't?"), possibly legal action ("why can they have a .eu when I can't?"), etc.

> They lose domain registration revenue.

I think only micronations have a significant revenue coming from tlds (e.g. Tuvalu)

They maintain sovereignty though. That’s more important than domain registration revenue.

If I somehow owned tax.gov, and was running a tax prep service from it, I doubt the “I’m grandfathered” argument would fly.

It’s likely similar to lawyers.eu (I made that domain up), etc; people should be able to expect that to be an EU based service, not something overseas.

The idea is that (at least in theory) when someone has the .eu domain, then they are in EU.

There are many ways to skip it, but it blocks at least some.

That revenue is tiny compared to being able to say .eu domains for EU orgs and businesses.

And so it should be. The Brexit should be as painful as possible for the UK. The more the UK is reminded of what they gave up, and what they will be missing, the better, as it positions them better for reentry.

Who cares about domain registration revenue? The only reason it isn't free is because of the administrative hassle of distributing frivolous domain registrations.

If EU citizens are confused about UK companies disappearing, maybe they'll search and be exposed to EU competitors, how could that be a bad thing?

.EU has a functional purpose, and to grandfather in those names would lead to disruption of the functional meaning.

Think of it as a UX reason rather than financial.

Sure it does:

1. The .eu TLD is supposed to signify that a business using it is part of the EU. That means EU consumers will know that EU regulations such as GDPR apply, they're unlikely to pay import/export taxes, etc. Allowing non-EU businesses to use it dilutes the purpose and value of the TLD.

2. The EU wants to avoid making freeloading look like a viable strategy. If Britain is able to leave the EU and still reap all the benefits of being an EU member, then what's the point of other nations staying in the EU? Domain names are obviously only a minor benefit of being in the EU but there's a reason this policy is being applied mostly across the board.

I was unaware that such thing happened, and I'm kind of surprised as it sounds like somewhat un-EU-ish to me, but I obviously had the wrong sense of what is EU-ish. And I wholeheartedly support that. I mean, it makes sense. If the domain policy of *.eu says that it is for *.eu-based people and organizations, and you leave the EU, why the fuck should you keep it?

If EU wanted to make more money on it, it would have made it available for everyone from the start. If it doesn't... well, it just means domain-selling is not the core EU-business. So it's exactly one of the 2: either Russian and Japanese companies should be allowed to own *.eu domain, or British ones shouldn't. And I don't honestly care which one is it. But it cannot be both at the same time.

So, no, it's not about hurting you, it's simply about the fact that the world doesn't revolve around you. As surprising as it may sound.

Both forms of Internet naming semantics make sense to me. Unfortunately, we've never reached any consensus or understanding at all about which apply where, or how to tell. That leaves us in this kind of crummy middle ground where different TLDs do or don't assert things about their registrants, to a degree that can change over time, and there's not an easy way to check. (You could read the NIC web site, if it's up-to-date, if it's in a language you speak, and if its stated policies actually correspond to its practices...)

It's not surprising at all that people's intuitions about a particular TLD would diverge. But it's sad, because it means the Internet naming system isn't working well in terms of the function of letting users know what particular names mean.

It's not crazy to imagine either a TLD that says "despite any possible appearances to the contrary, this is a first-come-first-served namespace in which names have no extrinsic meaning at all" or a TLD that says "this TLD is owned by entity X, and subdomains, like subdomains of a corporate or governmental network, are only given to persons with an appropriate relationship with entity X, and only during the term of that relationship". (Maybe even a TLD that says "notionally this TLD is about topic or group Y, but our rules about what that means are kind of idiosyncratic".) (But if there are TLDs in all these categories in the same DNS, both registrants and Internet users are probably going to be unsure which is which, as well as exactly what the TLDs in the third group "really" mean.)

> "After large-scale political changes I want there be no changes that might affect me personally."

.eu domain has certain registration requirements: - A Union citizen, independently of their place of residence. - A natural person who is not a Union citizen and who is a resident of a Member State. - An undertaking that is established in the Union. - An organization that is established in the Union, without prejudice to the application of national law.

Its completely normal for entities to stop servicing other entities after they aren´t in accordance of laws or rules.