U.K. Holders of .eu Domains Will Lose Rights After U.K. Withdrawal From E.U.

[engine]

U.K. holders of .eu domains will not be allowed to renew the domains after the U.K. exists from the European Union on 30 March 2019.

Clearly, this will cause problems for some where branding and trade names are important. I would guess it'll mean changing from a U.K. operation to another division in the E.U.

[ec.europa.eu...]

[Travis]

It seems normal.

Owners of .eu should renew it for the maximum length available, like that it will give them the time to switch their brand smoothly over the years.

[graeme_p]

Almost all .eu domains I have seen are from organisations that are intrinsically EU.

I imagine most of the rest have an EU subsidiary or business address that they can use to renew.

That said, in principle, I think once you hve a domain name you should have the right to renew it.

I wonder what the SNP plans to do about domain names in the event of Scottish independence.

[engine]

For those impacted, here's a link to the E.U. notification (PDF) [ec.europa.eu...]

[jmccormac]

Very badly handled. It seems that the European Commission didn't even bother to consult the registry.

Regards...jmcc

[lucy24]

I wonder what the SNP plans to do about domain names in the event of Scottish independence.

<topic drift>
I always thought it odd that the most obscure of Channel Islands get their own IANA allotments, while Scotland is forced to share turf with England.
</td>

It seems that the European Commission didn't even bother to consult the registry.

Well, governmental entities--on any level--aren't famous for understanding how the internet works.

[jmccormac]

Technically, the Scots united their country with England (1707 Act of Union [en.wikipedia.org...] ) after its aristocracy bankrupted themselves in a bit of dodgy land speculation. Wales is a principality in the UK.

The EC basically circumvented the registry, Eurid, and dumped the problem on Eurid claiming that it was responsible for sorting things out. The EC has form for this kind of rubbish as it effectively awarded the contract to run what was really a gTLD to a sub-one million domain names ccTLD registry (DNS.be). The registration system fell over on the first day of the land rush and there wasn't a working domain transfer system until about a month later.

Regards...jmcc

[TorontoBoy]

Why should UK owners give up their .eu domain name. Cannot anyone from anywhere buy any name? Are some .tlds reserved for residents of specific countries?

[lucy24]

Cannot anyone from anywhere buy any name? Are some .tlds reserved

The one that comes to mind is .edu. If your school goes out of business, you can't simply start using .edu for your car wash instead. Isn't China also extremely persnickety about who's allowed to register a .cn?

Currently I see a lot of IP blocks getting fragmented between Serbia and Kosovo (specifically) as borders change. Who knew that the map that existed in 1992 would not remain valid for all eternity.

[topr8]

i'm glad i didn't buy any eu domains - although i was planning to, as it obviously is going to be a bit of a mess now for British subjects.

This thread does seem the place to ask: ... i don't hold any but it seems to me you don't need to be a national to own .de .es .fr .it and probably many more, is this correct? ... certainly .uk is open to anyone as far as i know.

[Travis]

Are some .tlds reserved for residents of specific countries?

Of course !

Lot of TLD have restrictions.

.eu : Restricted to legal and natural persons in European Union member states.

Here you have all TLDs and their restrictions :

[en.wikipedia.org...]

and for generic TLDs

[en.wikipedia.org...]

[RedBar]

certainly .uk is open to anyone as far as i know.

.co.uk is open to anyone however .uk is definitely restricted and checked upon.

[topr8]

oh i didn't know that! thanks.

[azlinda]

I have a .co.uk domain for one of my websites. It forwards to a .com site. I've had it for years.

[graeme_p]

Quite a lot of ccTLDs are restricted in some way.

I always thought it odd that the most obscure of Channel Islands get their own IANA allotments, while Scotland is forced to share turf with England.

They also get their own ISO country codes, as does the Isle of Man, South Georgia etc.... They all have much more autonomy (tax, immigration, they are not part of the EU....) so its quite logical.

Saint Martin has two for the island - one for the French half and one for the Dutch half.

[graeme_p]

There is one thing odd about this though - surely it is usual to allow people who already have domains to keep them when the rules changes. This is a worrying precedent.

[Marketing Guy]

I suspect there wasn't a huge adoption of .eu domains outside of official organisations and maybe some domain prospectors. The disruption should be minimal.

The Scottish situation is likely to be more complex (if it hypothetically occurs). There's a huge amount of investment gone into .co.uk domains by Scottish businesses (most SMEs are .co.uk), so to remove or diminish that in any way would be crazy.

Scotland does have .scot domains though - they became available in 2014 and are restricted to Scottish residents or people / orgs with a Scottish connection. Which seems oddly vague, but given it was eventually rolled out the year of the independence referendum I'd imagine it was more PR stunt than actual plan.

[Xpat]

Well, the British were warned there would be consequences if we left the EU. Now all 7 Brits who registered an .eu domain will lose them. Oh the humanity.

[Marketing Guy]

Plot twist. It's 1 Brit and his 6 sock puppet accounts.

[Travis]

Well, the British were warned there would be consequences if we left the EU

... and also that, in spite of being outside of the EU, some EU rules will continue to apply to them. But that is their choice.