As the UK updates its .eu Brexit advice yet again, an alternative hovers into view If you are one of the 300,000 people or organizations based in the UK that owns a .eu domain, then the madness that is Brexit has come with an extra dose of frustration. On Friday, the UK government again updated its advice for Brits with .eu internet addresses. If we were to summarize it in a sentence it would be: god knows …
Our domain registrar offered us that for £140 per domain.
For anyone redirecting to their main domain, I just wouldn't bother its unlikely it will be helping web ranking in major search engines. For the company where I work although I was hoping to offload, but was told to keep them so just corrected the registrations to the company we have in Europe.
The price of .inc is just silly, thankfully everyone here has stopped the OMG WE MUST HAVE EVERY DOMAIN WITH OUR BRAND ON.
The major reason behind buying up every domain extension going was to prevent squatting and lost business through those squatters, which makes perfect sense when you consider that for most businesses the cost of registering the lot is minute; as El Reg notes about $10 per domain per year.
Even if your defensively registering a dozen domains a year, the cost is still pretty trivial compared to the cost of somebody squatting and actually picking up business from you.
I doubt that many people are going to register a domain at $2500 a year. Frankly, the cost of the domains is going to put squatters off of it's own accord without needing to register them defensively.
That's a good plan.
I'll start up the .irreal domain, and pick up those who can prove they are unreal should be an easier proposition than proving you are real (population of universe averages to 0 therefore anyone you meet is the product of a diseased imagination (sorry to DNA if paraphrase is wrong!)).
infinitefunzone.irreal is held for Iain M Banks should he choose to return for it.
.space? I'm sure years ago (mid 80s I expect - back days of usenet) I saw a RFC published which extended the domain naming system to cope with the then increasing number of satellites, space stations, inter planetary probes, the coming soon martian bases etc by adding an extra level of domain to indicate the planet/moon/asteroid/etc where the domain was based/orbiting. Can't remember if it was .space but there was one highest level domain name reserved for probes etc such as voyager that never orbited any object. Can't remember the year of the RFC but seem to think it was around the start of April!
What about people outside the current EU that don't have offices in the EU with .eu domains?
That is why this is all alarmist crap.
Domain names aren't going anywhere until registration renewal time.
Anyone who doesn't have a continental-based office, or relative willing to share their continental EU postal mailing address with them for the purposes of registration can get a lawyer to set that up for them via a dummy company with a continental postal mailing address.
Or you can do what we generally do in Canada and use .COM.
.CA it exists, but few Canadian companies use it.
Mostly .CA gets used by US companies with Canadian subsidiaries. (Technically it will be the Canadian subsidiary using it.)
Actual Canadian-based companies generally use .COM if they can afford it, and sometimes .COM with auto-redirects from .CA and .ORG, to protect their brand.
May apply to .eu domains but defiitely affected banks ... when EU attempted to block UK banks from the Euro clearing market after Brexit they realized WTO rules required the EU to ban all non-EU banks as well .... seem to recall they were going along this line until the US authorities commented that if the EU were banning US banks from Euro clearing then they might ban EU banks from dollar clearing which concentrated European minds a bit.
... then use a bit of imagination, coin a new and better name. The 'net's biggest name of all came from nothing: who had heard of a google before they appeared?
Thanks for the info on .incriminated. If I ever encounter one, I shall now be able to point and laugh at the mug.
Good old Enid had google buns in the Faraway Tree series. Unlike most of her other works, which are painful to read out loud to the dustbin lids at bedtime because of the thudding, clunky sentences, these books are OK. They are more fantasy/science fiction than her usual books.
Remember, kids, don't google Google!
Mr Dabbs this week was complaining about the "infantile" in modern society, with reference to names of online things particularly. It was a bit navel-gazy frankly and apparently he is still cross about self-service tills and reality television. Admittedly, so am I but I don't go on about it, but then I'm not offered money for doing so.
Brexit is going to be responsible for the biggest brain drain from this country that we’ve ever seen (it’s starting already - the French Consulate is booked for months, so if you’re in a hurry you won’t get out that way. I’m told that the Irish are similarly log-jammed - and I guess the same applies to all other European Nations with the good sense to remain.)
Your business can remain in the EU though - even if you can’t - and remarkably cheaply too. Estonia will help you out. You register for an e-ID and then you can set up your business as being Estonian (or have an Estonia branch). You can have a virtual office in that country, the lot. All online, all cheaply done. The only expensive(ish) part is that you need to fly to Tallinn to set up the bank account face to face (for obvious anti-fraud reasons) but, once that’s done, you’ll never have to go back - unless you want to, of course. Read all about it here (Estonian government website) https://e-resident.gov.ee/start-a-company/
Given the havoc that Brexit is causing, the perpetrators of this crime against the United Kingdom deserve to be remembered forever - on the same terms that Herod, Macbeth, Stalin and <Insert Name Here> are remembered in infamy.
My grandparents were Irish and after seeing the new passport this morning plus the fact that crashing out is pretty certain now (Jacob Rees-Mogg and crew are trying to make certain of that); I truly feel it's time to move on. It's such a shame to the UK that we've reached this point. I just hope the true motivations of the money men who have pushed us to this point become public one day.
The interesting question is whether by this point it actually matters if we have a hard Bexit, soft Brexit, or remain. I suspect the damage is already done and even if we were finally to stay in the EU the legacy of chaos would seriously affect future inward investment. And we don't really do investment ourselves, at least not in anything productive.
I wonder how much UK business there will be to even need a .EU domain name...
>The interesting question is whether by this point it actually matters if we have a hard Bexit, soft Brexit, or remain.
It doesn't - our dirty little secret (that we're 30% gammon) is out - I think much of the world thought it was self-deprecating Pythonesque humour until recently.
Try and focus on the positives - independent Scotland, United Ireland and cheaper housing for skilled IT workers in London and the South who can work abroad from home.
My grandparents were Irish and ... I truly feel it's time to move on.
My mother's ancestors were illegal immigrants from Norway to the north-east of Scotland, something over a thousand years ago ... I daresay HMG has lost the paperwork ... do you think I could get a Norwegian passport?
I could get a longboat ...
The .UK and .EU domains are going to become political turds in a post-brexit Britain so it makes business sense to dump them now. If you subscribe to the ‘Brexit’ updates on GOV.UK site then you'll get about 20-30 emails of advice every day that effectively say that the government doesn't know what will happen but it will be bad.
Pointless getting one of these, even if you were prepared to pay silly money initially. The bandwagon can't roll without the initial momentum. There is a big clue in the name of the product as to which direction renewal fees are going to go.
Unless that price is guaranteed as a one-off cost in perpetuity.
EURid has placed on hold any plan regarding domain names registered to individuals and undertakings located in the United Kingdom and Gibraltar
Now why are they being specific about Gibraltar? There are also the Crown Dependencies that aren't part of the UK (Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey), and Gibraltar isn't even the only British Overseas Territory adjacent to an EU country. I think it's disingenuous and dangerous for certain EU members (you know who you are) to try to cut Gibraltar out of the herd and gain leverage over its sovereignty. Oversensitive? Could be...
Gibraltar has a special, unique EU relationship. UK called it a colony till 1981. Only the name has changed, not status, it's not IN the UK, unlike Northern Ireland it returns no MPs.
The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands not only are not part of the UK, Gibraltar is not part of the UK either, but unlike Gibraltar which has full EU status, no other UK Crown Colony/Dependency is part of the EU. The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are under something called Protocol Three, which allows them to be in the EU Customs Union and Single Market.
If the UK is serious that Gibraltar isn't a colony, then they should return MPs to Parliament, like Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Cornwall do.
Not only are Cayman Is, Bermuda and other UK Overseas territories not yet implementing EU laws on banking transparency, money laundering and Offshore accounts, but the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are in violation of EU law too. The EU has officially complained about UK tardiness on these laws which the UK agreed. Switzerland has implemented them and isn't even in the EU.
Luxembourg, Dutch and Irish tax and banking are now compliant, or in the process of becoming so. The Irish Corporate Tax Rate is perfectly legal, the problem was Companies not even paying that due to offshoring "royalties" (Starbucks, Microsoft, etc,) or even illegal special deals (Apple).
Is the real reason for the Hard Brexiteers that they want parasitic behaviour to continue in the City of London (which gives UK its 5th ranking) and continued secretive banking, money laundering and Offshore accounts on UK controlled territories that return no MPs to Parliament?
Is the solution to Brexit for some UK Territories (Islands in the West) to get full independence, England to leave UK, and for Isle Of Man, Channel Is. and Gibraltar to join the UK? Downgrade the devolved Assemblies and rotate Parliament every 4 months or so between N.I., Wales, Scotland, Isle of Man, Gibraltar and Channel Is? Or have Parliament in Wales.
Also when will UK give back Cyprus territory and then there is their illegal action in the Indian Ocean?
The UK "bought" Chagos Archipelago, which includes Diego Garcia, from the then self-governing colony of Mauritius for £3 million to create the British Indian Ocean Territory. This was illegal. The Diego Garcia inhabitants were illegally deported.
"If the UK is serious that Gibraltar isn't a colony, then they should return MPs to Parliament, like Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Cornwall do."
Gibraltar is, I think, a colony. I believe the Treaty of Utrecht requires it to be so, and if it stops being a colony of the UK, Spain gets first dibs on it. Or something like that.
@DavCrav
Gibraltar's formal status is a British Overseas Territory, at least now. Mage says it was a formal Colony until relatively recently. You make an interesting point about Spanish first dibs, which I had to look up. A non-definitive transcription of Article X of the Treaty of Utrecht (13 July 1713) [1] says Quod si vero Coronae Magnae Britanniae commodum olim visum fuerit, donare, vendere, aut quoquo modo ab se alienare dictae Urbis Gibraltiricae proprietatem, conventum hisce concordatumque est, ut prima ante alios ejus redimendae optio Coronae Hispanicae semper deferatur.
The given translation [2] renders this as And in case it shall hereafter seem meet to the Crown of Great Britain to grant , sell or by any means to alienate therefrom the propriety of the said town of Gibraltar, it is hereby agreed and concluded that the preference of having the sale shall always be given to the Crown of Spain before any others.
So the Crown cannot give Gibraltar away to, I dunno, Morocco, say, without giving Spain first refusal. It doesn't seem to say anything about changing the status of Gibraltar while maintaining Crown proprietorship.
[1] Original Latin
I've just looked it up. What Spain's (stupid) argument is that Gibraltans aren't allowed to make any decisions about their future because that would qualify as a transfer of sovereignty from the UK to Gibraltar, and Spain gets first dibs. Since decolonization involves Gibraltans attaining sovereignty over themselves, even as part of shared sovereignty, Gibraltar cannot be decolonized and can only be given to Spain. Furthermore, because (in their eyes) territorial integrity trumps Gibraltans' right to self-determination (Spain rejects the idea that Gibraltans are a people in their own right, and say they are essentially Spanish), the only way to decolonize it would be for Spain to annex it. As a UN resolution says that colonies should be ended, Spain deserves to be able to annex it.
I should also point out that their over-reliance on Utrecht over subsequent UN resolutions is not a good look. The actual treaty is archaic. For example, one of the stipulations in it is that Jews aren't allowed to settle in Gibraltar. The UK ignored this provision, and Spain for a while protested this technical breach. They stopped protesting at some point, I'm not sure when, but hopefully not too recently.
The idiocy of Spain's position is best revealed by a simple timeline:
1516 - Spain founded
1713 - Gibraltar given to the British in return for helping to keep Spain Spanish.
2019 - Today
306 years British, compared to just 197 years Spanish. Gibraltar has been British for a lot longer than it ever was Spanish and thus they have no realistic prospect of a claim, now or in the future. Spain's claim to Catalonia isn't substantially longer; a fact upon which they should be instructed to reflect.
"So the Crown cannot give Gibraltar away to, I dunno, Morocco, say, without giving Spain first refusal. It doesn't seem to say anything about changing the status of Gibraltar while maintaining Crown proprietorship."
Yeah but the UK can't stick to commitments it made to the EU in recent years, never mind commitments it made 300 years ago...
Everyone's going on about the Irish border these days but none of the brexiters ever mentioned the Spain-Gibraltar border - when we leave the EU that too will have to return to being a hard border unless the "technological solution" proposed by the brexiters works. What are they proposing, chipping everybody?
A hard border at Gibraltar is not seen as such a problem because customs posts in Gibraltar are unlikely to get bombed. There's a hard border between Switzerland and Germany which I drove over on my way to work this morning; it's a bit of a pain, but not too bad.
The NI-Irish border is currently more similar to the French-German or Welsh-English border ... a sign by the side of the road.
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And the nonsense of the whole Brexit issue is we had three examples right off our own coast of a simple Brexit option: Man, Geunsey & Jersey - outside the EU but inside the Single Market. Instead wev'e spent alsmost three years trying to create a British Exeptionalist custom model.
Switzerland has implemented them and isn't even in the EU.
If you truly believe that has made any difference to the ability to obtain a numbered account, subject to sufficient initial deposit, I have a bridge you may like to buy.
Is the real reason for the Hard Brexiteers that they want parasitic behaviour to continue in the City of London (which gives UK its 5th ranking) and continued secretive banking, money laundering and Offshore accounts on UK controlled territories
You don't genuinely expect this to make any difference to the City, do you? Really? In, out, regs, no regs, it matters not to the City.
Once you understand, I mean properly understand, the magic of incorporation, particularly multiple incorporation's across legal jurisdictions, you'll understand why EU banking regs matter no a jot.
Now, you may want them too, and you may feel very strongly that they should matter, but that doesn't mean they make the slightest bit difference I'm afraid. Shoot the messenger if you must, but it won't alter the message in the slightest. Sorry.
Only N.I., England, Scotland and Wales are countries of the UK.
Cornwall is now an English Duchy, though was originally not part of England.
Gibraltar, Channel Is, Isle of Man are not part of the UK and never have been. They are territories controlled by the UK. They don't have the same status as Falklands, Cayman Is, Bermuda, Chagos Is, British Virgin Is or other Territories.
I think the change of status of Gibraltar from Colony in 1981 was to aid the removal of British Citizenship from people in Hong Kong.
I don't agree with the Spanish argument, but it's ironic it's fuelled by a change the UK made to Gibraltar to disenfranchise people in Hong Kong. BTW, did the lease run out on Hong Kong Island proper or ONLY on the mainland territories part of the Hong Kong Colony?
Cornwall is now an English Duchy, though was originally not part of England.
Gibraltar, Channel Is, Isle of Man are not part of the UK and never have been. They are territories controlled by the UK. They don't have the same status as Falklands, Cayman Is, Bermuda, Chagos Is, British Virgin Is or other Territories.
There is something else to it. The UK entering the EU secured access to passporting and everything else for the financial services in those territories. Basically the UK became a trojan horse for all their tax heavens. Obviously some Spaniards were happy to have a tax heaven on their border and a lot more were quite unhappy about it. Now some of them see Brexit as a good chance to catch the moment and address the issue.
Only the New Territories were leased, Hong Kong itself was given to Britain by the will of G*d and a large number of gunboats.
The deal with handing it back was a facing saving measure on both sides. Britain ignores the fact that the 100 million strong People's Army could walk in and overwhelm the 6 British guards at any time - and we aren't abut to fight a land war in Asia against a nuclear power to do a Falklands.
China pretends that this is all a business transaction and since they are so international-law abiding could they join the WTO and start selling crap soon please?
Interesting, but not really relevant.
Gibraltar is, at the time of writing, EU territory, as part of the UK's membership of the EU. Scotland, England, Wales & Northern Ireland are also EU territory as part of the same UK membership of the EU. Isle of Man, Jersey, Falklands, St Helena, Pitcairn, etc, etc, etc, are under varying degrees of British control, but not part of the EU.
My publicly informed impression is that if Spain sends tanks into Gibraltar on Brexit Day and puts the English-speaking residents in cattle trucks, Britain won't be able to do much about it on our own and we won't have any friend to help. And serve us right. I am aware that the Register community has a high ratio of people intensely concerned with not paying personal tax and either sympathetic to Gibraltar's peculiar status or actually banking there, but, tough. It's what I voted Leave for.
@Robert Carnegie
"My publicly informed impression is that if Spain sends tanks into Gibraltar on Brexit Day and puts the English-speaking residents in cattle trucks, Britain won't be able to do much about it on our own and we won't have any friend to help"
Spain already made comments about taking Gibraltar and our response was that we are happy to send a few ships in that direction. After creating a puddle the Spanish changed their minds. Thats without calling on anyone else who would be interested in keeping international law.
But we're not awash with ships, are we?
As for international law, I imagine there would be a consensus view that Spain merely was repatriating territory that was theirs anyway. Less trouble.
Likewise Ireland, but that case was also going to involve persuading Donald Trump to endorse Irish reunification and peacemaking, for domestic politics reasons. The unification consisting of Uncle Sam shipping persons identifying as British back to the mainland at gunpoint.
@Robert Carnegie
"But we're not awash with ships, are we?"
The EU looks to the UK and France for its military capability.
"As for international law, I imagine there would be a consensus view that Spain merely was repatriating territory that was theirs anyway. Less trouble."
That would be little trouble under the condition Spain and various other European countries also did the same with their territories. I expect international law would have little problem with Spain taking a kicking for trying to steal.
"Likewise Ireland, but that case was also going to involve persuading Donald Trump to endorse Irish reunification and peacemaking"
The problem with Irish reunification is part of Ireland is now owned by the EU and the other half is part of the UK. It has always been an option to put the EU border in the water, Just not splitting the UK.
"Because .inc is virgin territory you will almost certainly be able to get your name – and perhaps even a better name that your current web address, he said"
They seem to be suggesting that you could get a 'better' domain name that might already be taken on the .com TLD. But if you don't own the 'better' .com then it would be risky to register a .inc for that name as you might end up loosing it, if the .com owner disputed your right to register it.
As well as the upfront and ongoing costs of the .inc being a lot higher than most other TLD, there are lots of additional costs from having to update all your other promotional material, stationary, etc to the new domain and i just don't see how it is worth it from a business perspective.
UK companies that have a .eu domain can get a trade agreement with us - we've done it for a few companies now and we're a company in Europe.
The result is that our address shows on the admin portion of WHOIS, and they can keep on doing what they did before - we just represent them in certain areas of Europe. All above board, all legal. To be frank it barely makes us a profit but that's OK, we just thought it was bloody petty from an organisation that otherwise cannot be bothered to ask questions and allows domain name hoarding.
I'll contact the article author with the details - I don't like advertising on a public forum.
So when you've got the .com, .uk, .co.uk, .eu, .de, .dk, .jp, .cn... .xxx domains for <company> and are paying the renewal fees you can now spend even more on a .inc domain?
I never did understand why having the domain names for every country you operate in (or might want to in future) was considered a Good Thing. I would have thought the message that "we're a company that operates internationally so here's the relevant section of our head office web site" would be most convincing.
I'm even less convinced about owning <company>.xxx (unless, of course, that really does represent your line of business). Anyone looking for <company> related porn would probably be mightily disappointed to be redirected to <company>.com.
Any company that wants to keep access to the Eu market, employee both UK and Eu citizens and live under the tyrannical jackboot of Belgian oppression telling them what shape their bananas could be - just has to register an Eu domain to signal this.
Companies that wish to breath the clean air of a new Jerusalem, employ only the stout yeomen of England (and Scotland, Wales+NI) and benefit from the trade deals with Faroe, Tuvalu and Narnia can keep using the .uk domains.
See a simple technical solution was possible all along.
I have already moved my .eu domain and hosting to Ireland, and have used a friends address in Germany to register.
I just hope that the EU doesn't go back and say the .eu needs to be pointed to a EU IP or else it gets terminated. Some folks might need to find a hosting company inside the EU if so.
What would happen if you consider the UK as four separate countries?
England: EN? - seems to be available
Scotland: SC? - is Seychelles - Nope!
Wales: WA? - That seems free, but not Cymru: CY - Cyprus have that one!
N.Ireland: NI? - Nicaragua already bagged it.
If internet folks in Scotland had been quick enough off the mark, ".sx" was not yet in use until relatively recently (2010), was no worse a match than some of the 2LCCs that exist, resembles the flag in part, and could perhaps have also introduced a potentially lucrative sideline in hosting adult domain names…
(As it is, the good people of Sint Maarten (they of the famous almost beach-landing airport) got it.)
Regularly brexit supporters are told we are looking back to the days of an empire in our backward looking ways-
https://www.politico.eu/article/frenzy-in-firenze-4-takeaways-from-eu-lead-candidate-debate/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=RSS_Syndication
Guess what! In the jousting match to become another pain in the ass we have the idiot whos name begins with a V saying-
"The new world order is not an order of nation states," he said. "The new world order is an order of empires — empires like China, like India, like Russia, like the United States of America." He added, "Only together in a real European union, we can succeed and survive."
Apparently they would also like an FBI (EU version) and an army. At the same time wondering why people are voting for pretty much anyone offering them an alternative to the wet dreams of the EU.
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