EU dumps nearly 300000 British owned ‘.eu’ domains into Brexit bin

NewsBharati    30-Mar-2018
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Brussels, March 30: Following Britain's decision to eventually depart from the European Union, it has been decided by the European Commission to cancel all 3,00,000 domains under the ‘.eu’ a top-level domain that has a UK registrant.

 

According to the statement, “As of the withdrawal date, undertakings and organisations that are established in the United Kingdom but not in the EU, and natural persons who reside in the United Kingdom will no longer be eligible to register .eu domain names or, if they are .eu registrants, to renew .eu domain names registered before the withdrawal date.”

Going even further, the EC suggested that existing .eu domains might be canceled the moment Brexit happens – expected to be 366 days from now – with no right of appeal.

 

"As a result of the withdrawal of the United Kingdom, a holder of a domain name does no longer fulfill the general eligibility criteria... the Registry for .eu will be entitled to revoke such domain name on its own initiative and without submitting the dispute to an extrajudicial settlement of conflicts."

According to the most recent statistics available, there are just over 317,000 .eu domains registered in the UK – roughly a tenth of the registry's total. Canceling them would have a huge impact on the company that runs .eu, EURid, and on the EU itself which receives millions of euros annually in surplus funds.

Even more remarkably, EURid made it plain that it was not consulted over the plans or even informed what they were before the news was made public. A statement on the registry's site begins: "Yesterday afternoon, EURid, the registry manager of the .eu TLD, received the link to the European Commission’s communication concerning Brexit and the .eu TLD."