back to article Eurocrats double down on .eu Brexit boot-out

Eurocrats have reiterated that UK citizens will not be allowed to own .eu domain names following Brexit, releasing proposed new rules that open up the registry while at the same time clamping down on Brits. Last month, the European Commission unexpectedly announced that UK-based owners of .eu domains would not have their .eu …

COMMENTS

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  1. kain preacher

    Let me guess Eurid said you do that and we will sue.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Or a Pole or an Irishman in the UK, with an EU domain sues them for screwing their business.

      1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

        Or it dawned on on the Eurocrats that one approach would cost them money, and the other could make them more money...

        1. AMBxx Silver badge

          Or they realised that very few of them are actually being used rather than just being registered to stop squatters.

          Even EU fanbois at the BBC have a redirect to co.uk.

          1. randomdomainer

            There are more .EU domain names that redirect than there are active .EU websites. It really isn't a first choice TLD for people registering their domain names. If anything, it has become a brand protection TLD.

  2. Frank Zuiderduin

    Occam's

    Two different groups reaching different conclusions is far more likely than anything else. I mean, who ever heard of the EC backtracking on a crazy decision?

    1. Nick Kew
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So it's not adi.eu but thank.eu then.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I see what eu did there.

      1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
        Happy

        OK, OK. Don't ram it home.

  4. LeeH

    In Next Month's News

    Idiocrats tell the UK that Brexit must have consequences and, as such, .eu registrations remain closed to UK nationals for 10 years post Brexit despite now being open to everyone else. "There. That'll teach 'em!" an idiocrat was overheard saying.

    1. LeeH

      Re: In Next Month's News

      I love upsetting remoaners. They give me so much joy, so much feedback.. every downvote is a thumbs-up!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: In Next Month's News

        have another downvote then....

        1. LeeH

          Re: In Next Month's News

          @AC Beautiful! Thank you!

          P.S I like to leave them confused over whether to downvote or upvote, or not. What a dilema!

          1. Jamie Jones Silver badge

            Re: In Next Month's News

            "P.S I like to leave them confused over whether to downvote or upvote, or not. What a dilema!"

            An overinflated view of your own importance and relevence to the rest of the world... Just like the view you and your cronies have about jolly old england!

          2. Teiwaz

            Re: In Next Month's News

            I like to leave them confused over whether to downvote or upvote, or not. What a dilema!

            No confusion, repetitive use of tired old phrases like remoaner (or any trite distortion of names of former politicians) automatically get a downvote.

      2. Lars Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: In Next Month's News

        "I love upsetting remoaners.".

        With what?

        1. LeeH

          Re: In Next Month's News

          @Lars: Decisions. They are not very good at them.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: In Next Month's News

            Wull which member of three cabinet are then? And of that subset who might possibly do so, which of them might actually put a coherent argument for the decision (or against)? Precious few methinks.

      3. Roland6 Silver badge

        Re: In Next Month's News

        >I love upsetting remoaners. They give me so much joy, so much feedback..

        If it wasn't for this comment, I could have thought you liked winding ardent Brexiteers up :)

        My father-in law would have believed your comment and then gone on and on about the idiotic EU and how it has it in for the UK... :)

        1. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge

          Re: In Next Month's News

          Well, it is on record as saying that we must be punished.....

          1. YetAnotherLocksmith Silver badge

            Re: In Next Month's News

            If we don't punish stupidity though, where will that leave evolution?

            1. Tom 38

              Re: In Next Month's News

              Don't feed it or it will keep coming back.

      4. Hollerithevo

        Re: In Next Month's News

        @LeeH, I am a Remainer who doesn't moan, I just await the verdict of history. Let's check in and compare notes to see how the UK is doing by, oh, 2030.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: In Next Month's News

          @Hollerithevo; "I just await the verdict of history."

          I'd be happier to do that if I wasn't going to be caught up in the consequences as well.

      5. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: In Next Month's News

        "I love upsetting remoaners. They give me so much joy, so much feedback.. every downvote is a thumbs-up!"

        Ah, the old "by downvoting me I win" ploy. Truly, you *are* a genius that has outfoxed us "remoaners"!

        "I like to leave them confused over whether to downvote or upvote, or not. What a dilema! [sic]"

        Seriously, this comes across as something only a fourteen-year-old would-be troll with a sadly inflated sense of their own cleverness could convince themselves of.

        The only credit I might have given for your adolescent ramblings would be if they were a ploy to make "Leave" voters look stupid, but even then I'd think you'd pushed it a bit too far for plausibility.

        Then again...

  5. Lars Silver badge
    Happy

    "what on earth is going on within the European Commission when it can emit two directly contradictory statements within a month of each other.".

    Influenced by Davis perhaps.

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Rudd... er... less.

      1. david bates

        Unlikely.

        Knowledge of domains, URLs and an inkling of how the internet works suggests this way, way above Ambers paygrade.

        1. TRT Silver badge

          Knowledge of domains...

          True, but she's a master of self-contradiction and U-turning - those are transferrable skills.

          1. TRT Silver badge

            Re: Knowledge of domains...

            And now she's gone.

  6. Blockchain commentard

    Or someone pointed out .eu was for Europe not the EU?

    1. Roml0k

      > Or someone pointed out .eu was for Europe not the EU?

      Judging by this latest proposal, it seems more like .eu is for Eurovision.

    2. randomdomainer

      .eu was for the European Union rather than Europe.

      1. Roland6 Silver badge

        So perhaps some wise guy marketeer got to the EU and explained that to most people (outside of the EU) .eu = europe

        So the EU could provide the first step to enlargement by allowing all EUropeans to use the .eu gTLD, only change the conditions of usage: domain owner agrees to be governed by EU laws on website content and all transactions passing through the website...

      2. Daniel von Asmuth

        .EU ! 4 U

        This will affect only a few British citizens and companies. A far greater effect will be when the former indenpendent nations of .IT, .FR, .DE, .BE, .PL, .AT, etc. become subdomains of .EU.

  7. The Nazz

    What's the difference?

    Personally, i don't see the differentiation between being eligible for a eu. or a nyc. and the condition that you must reside in the latter.

    If people apply for a eu. domain because they wish to have a presence and do business there, surely the same argument applies equally to .nyc?

    Quite why anyone should want a number of the expanded domain names remains to be seen but perhaps time, and money, will tell as to when the .nyc will be open to everyone.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What's the difference?

      While you probably only want a .eu if you have or intend to have some sort of business connection with the eu, maybe you want it so you can register adi.eu or some other "clever" URL (though whois says it is taken, maybe there are some other French words that are available)

      1. FrogsAndChips Silver badge

        Re: What's the difference?

        Sacrebl.eu immediately came to mind, but it seems to have been taken by a comedy club in Brick Lane. Palsambl.eu appears free.

        Ohmondi.eu (OMG) is also unavailable.

        1. Pen-y-gors

          Re: What's the difference?

          But

          mylordmontagueofbeauli.eu

          is available - not sure what to use it for theu.

        2. handleoclast

          Re: What's the difference?

          mountaindi.eu

          1. doublelayer Silver badge

            Re: What's the difference?

            I just want pretty much all of those annoying new TLDs to go away. We need neither .accountant nor .accountants, and ICANN was clearly intending a truly massive joke when they put both of those up. Do they really expect that to end well? And what do they expect us to put in the TLD .airforce. I hate to break it to them, but none of us citizens own an airforce, even for those who have private jets and enjoy the humor. I'm going to state now that I will consider any website under .associates to be so dodgy as to be immediately blacklisted without a visit. .attorney is similarly weird, and of course there's also .law, .lawyer, and .legal. Thanks mates. Then they do the same singular-plural thing with .auto and .autos, when of course they have .car *and* .cars. And that's just the As. I haven't even checked out the rest of the alphabet for my own sanity. Kill them now!

          2. herman

            Re: What's the difference?

            "mountaindi.eu" Mon di.eu or sacre bl.eu would be more apt.

            1. handleoclast

              Re: What's the difference?

              "mountaindi.eu" Mon di.eu or sacre bl.eu would be more apt.

              This is the El Reg comments section. We don't let apt get in the way of terrible puns.

    2. randomdomainer

      Re: What's the difference?

      The .NYC gTLD is actually closer to being a real ccTLD than .EU. The reason is that it has a strong geographically defined market. New York also has a very strong brand and the people there have a strong sense of being New Yorkers. By comparison, the market for the .EU is really quite nebulous and, as has been seen, is vulnerable to having its policy decided by brainfart. The other unusual thing is that .EU is actually closer to being a generic gTLD because of the wide variation of languages and regions. Ask someone in the EU what nationality they are and they are unlikely to say that they are European.

    3. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge

      Re: What's the difference?

      Exactly. Mr Mcarthy's argument is non-existent. He says that there is no point in having geographical llimits on domain names, except for some names where there is a point....

      Thisis the sort of logic we have come to expect from politicians. But not from El Reg....

  8. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    Norms of the internet

    Not only would killing off 300,000 domains (actually 318,482) go against the long-held norms of the internet,

    Shall I provide with a reference about the mass domain murders after the dissolution of su and yu as well as the various mass domain graves dug by the registries succeeding countries? Or the various volte-face "we allow external"/"we do not allow external" which have at some time happened to half of the small registries around the Pacific like .cx?

    There is a long history of similar incidents some of them even more idiotic than the .eu one.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Idiocrats"

    Why not. We can all join in with the brexit hate-fest.

    Pick your side then demonise and hate the other.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Idiocrats", "Brexit backtrack", "idiotic decision"...?

      Have to agree. I know The Register prides itself on its "tabloidiness", but this was verging into Daily Mail levels of overt partisanship that even Andrew Orlowski's obvious dislike of Google et al doesn't normally reach.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The article is at odds with the infographic

    > On Friday, the same idiocrats found a way to backtrack while not losing face: by deciding to open up the .eu registry to anyone who wants a .eu domain, regardless of where they live.

    Not 'anyone' according to the infographic but only those from the EU/EEA. The bit that has changed is that they can now reside/be based anywhere in the world.

  11. John H Woods Silver badge
    Coat

    U-turns not necessarily bad shocker

    "what on earth is going on within the European Commission when it can emit two directly contradictory statements within a month of each other."

    Well, maybe they realized the first decision was stupid and made a better one. Seriously guys, unless we stop criticizing politicians for U-turns we are going to get what we deserve: idiots who press on regardless with the first thing they thought of despite accumulating evidence that it's not a good idea.

    Like ... Brexit? .... yeah i'll just get that and run for cover ...

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: U-turns not necessarily bad shocker

      >Well, maybe they realized the first decision was stupid and made a better one.

      Or perhaps the 'idiocrats' aren't so daft! Just like 10 Downing St., they've played hardball to satisfy an audience (EU27) and now made a definitive announcement that will get minimal coverage and 300,000+ UK businesses can continue to believe they are part of the EU - ball in T.May's court: is she going to require all British companies and individuals to renounce the EU...

      Remember "Brexit means Brexit" and nothing is agreed until the fat lady sings...

      1. randomdomainer

        Re: U-turns not necessarily bad shocker

        The 300K "UK owned" .EU domain names does not equate to 300K businesses in the UK. The number of UK .EU registrations has been relatively stable for approximately ten years and that's a bit odd even for brand protection registrations. Many of the non-EU cyberwarehousers registering large numbers of .EU domain names in the land rush used UK registered front companies to hold these domain names. This means that if any of these cyberwarehousers are still active, they are holding multiple domain names for non-EU businesses. The number of .EU domain names owned by actual UK registrants is lower than the Eurid figure would suggest.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Trollface

      Re: U-turns not necessarily bad shocker

      Like ... Joining the EU in the first place? ....

      FTFY

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Follow the money, always.

  13. randomdomainer

    EUnuchs create another fine mess?

    Looks like the EUnuchs in the European Commission created another mess with their decision to tell Eurid to cancel UK registrations in .EU ccTLD. Most generic TLDs, and the .EU is a generic TLD rather than a genuine ccTLD, are having problems gaining registrations and some are continuing to lose them. The decision to remove about 8% of the .EU registrations was the kind of thing that epitomised the EC's bumbling mismanagement of the ccTLD. As a TLD, the web usage of .EU domain names is not quite in the same league as .UK or .DE. More .EU domain names redirect elsewhere than are active sites as businesses use the .EU as a redirect to the relevant ccTLD or .COM website. (18.11% content; 52.85% no content; 29.04% redirects) While the decision may have had some legalistic basis, the reality is that the people in the European Commission dealing with domain name issues haven't a clue about domain names or the domain name market. It appointed Eurid to run the .EU and it should have consulted it first rather than indulging in management by brainfart. Perhaps some of them have been LARTed and this is why there's a bit of a backtrack in progress?

    1. Jamie Jones Silver badge

      Re: EUnuchs create another fine mess?

      "and the .EU is a generic TLD rather than a genuine ccTLD"

      Wrong....

      A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, sovereign state, or dependent territory identified with a country code.

      All ASCII ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all two-letter top-level domains are ccTLDs.

      1. randomdomainer

        Re: EUnuchs create another fine mess?

        The .EU is effectively a generic TLD rather than a genuine ccTLD. It might be a bit complex for people who don't understand the domain name industry to understand this simple point. A ccTLD tends to have a strong identity based upon a nation or a country. The .EU isn't really a country and was meant to represent a group of countries and at least twenty seven languages. It is has not got a strong centralised usage which effectively dominates all other usage in the TLD. More domain names in .EU redirect to their .COM or ccTLD primary brand website than are used for active .EU websites. The biggest user of .EU in terms of websites and web pages is actually the EU bureaucracy as all official EU organisations use .EU websites. Generic TLDs tend to have multiple country level markets within them. These domains and websites are targeting local country markets and there are some targeting a smaller globally targeted/export market. The ccTLD markets tend to be very different in that the largest market is the local country market. Web usage in most ccTLDs is far stronger than that in .EU. In real terms, the .EU is struggling to break 5% of the domain name market in each of its constituent countries.

        Most country level domain name markets in the EU are dominated by the local ccTLD and .COM. That ccTLD/COM axis generally accounts for over 80% of the domain names registered in a country. Even within the EU, the total of ccTLD/COM registrations is much larger than the total number of .EU domain name registrations. Even the 318K UK footprint in .EU is tiny compared to the 10.5 million .UK domain names in its ccTLD. In terms of performance and usage, .EU is very much a generic TLD rather than a ccTLD.

  14. Alan Brown Silver badge

    "No one thinks any less of the .uk domain space because lots of non-UK citizens and organizations have .uk internet addresses. "

    Lots of people registered .co.ck domains because we (the other two people involved in that decision should remain nameless) didn't think through what it spelled until preemptive registrations started rolling in by the thousand from the world's large companies. Ahh, days of innocence.

    The Cook Islands government stepped in when someone tried to register big.co.ck and a few years later everything was migrated to com.ck. It's Ironic how sensitive they were about it considering one of the selling points for tourists is the appendages on the local statues (missionaries never did manage to chop them off like they did in most of of the rest of the Pacific).

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fuck.eu

    Thats all

  16. Ken Hagan Gold badge

    "The reality is that if someone wants a .eu domain name, it is because they want to demonstrate some kind of willingness to provide services or goods to Europe."

    In a sane world, the way to show such willing would be to have a business address where a disgruntled customer could serve papers.

  17. ditismijnhandle

    Calling EU officials idocrats?

    What is wrong with the first decision of the EU? The Brits have decided in their sole wisdom (inspired by joker Falange) all by themselves to leave the EU, so should not now be crying like a baby when the EU acts as asked for: Brexit.

    I would rarther say that the "stupid answer" from the European Commision as El Reg calls it is as intelligents as the Brits to decide in favor of Brexit (or as stupid if you like).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Calling EU officials idocrats?

      Stopping new registrations from the UK may be reasonable.

      Killing old domains would be vindictive and serve nobody. Especially not the .eu registry given that nobody would ever trust them again.

      1. ditismijnhandle

        Re: Calling EU officials idocrats?

        The implementation as you propose would be fair to everyone.

  18. codejunky Silver badge

    Hmm

    As painted out by us brexiters previously, the EU had a stupid idea. Both sides should be happy to see the EU backtrack.

    It does make fun re-reading of the comments on the previous article

  19. Roj Blake Silver badge

    Leave.eu

    I was quite looking forward to the Leave.EU campaign why their website had suddenly vanished.

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