Barmy ban on businesses, Brits based in Blighty bearing or buying .eu domains is back: Cut-off date is Jan 1, 2021 Any Brit based in the UK, and not in the EU, will have their .eu domain taken away from them on January 1, 2021, according to the latest iteration of rules published by the TLD's operator EURid. The revised fine-print was updated this week, and is the fourth attempt by Brussels' bureaucrats to show Brexiteers what’s what by …
I'd suggest that it's considerably more daft, actually.
It's now an established thing that you should account for in planning which domain name to use. So if you live in a country that might conceivably leave the EU in the next twenty years then your going to want to ensure that your using a national domain name that you know dammed well is going to keep working.
That would suggest that you shouldn't use a .eu domain in any country that has any serious movement with any public support to leave the EU. And um, that's not just Britain.
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I know that your doing a bad attempt at trolling, but as the .uk domains aren't restricted to people living in the UK so that wouldn't be an issue if a member state of the UK left the union.
The British government also doesn't have the authority to tell Nominet to cancel the registrations of all scottish domains, and if they were told to do it unlawfully I can see Nominet politely declining.
Twenty years from now will the Internet be three big regions?
If the EU has control of 450 million eyeballs and has build itself an image of reliable, consumer-protected, honest, quality, resiliency[1] etc by making sure anyone that uses the .eu domain is related to the EU in some way (and thereby subject to the ECJ :-) then you will be at a severe disadvantage if you are not in the tent pissing out.
Of course the English are happy to piss out of their tent, too. They just don't see that it's being put back in the water we are buying from the EU to quench our thirst!
[1] I think you need to look at the EU from the perspective of a 200-year project, and we are only sixty years in.
>>>200-year project<<< Pfft.... no ambition*
I wouldn't be surprised if the French had been pissing in the bottled water they send us (& the Germans) since day one.
*Over a 1,000 years ago the post Roman kingdoms joined to form England 700 years ago Wales joined, 300 years ago Scotland joined, 400 years ago Ireland joined (100 yr ago mostly left again) and we're still waiting for the petty name-calling and one-upmanship between these regions to stop. For centuries the safest way to keep the UK quiet was to send the belligerent bunch to play in France.
If I recall my history books, the invasion of Wales commenced largely as a direct follow on from the Norman Invasion of England. The invasion of Ireland also appears to be generally described as an Anglo-Norman invasion, being at a time when Normandy was an independent territory in it's own right (so the spear carriers may have been to some large degree English, but the leadership were Normans, probably a generation or two down from the initial invaders of England).
So probably more accurate say that Normandy invaded Wales and Ireland, having already annexed England.
Off hand, I think conflicts between England and Scotland didn't really get going until a couple of hundred years after the Norman invasion, so can't really call that a Norman invasion.
But then, the English invasion of Scotland ultimately failed, with Scotland regaining independence.
And then partial union (in one respect) occurred when King James VI of Scotland became James I of England, meaning that the King of England was Scottish (though the two crowns were separate).
And actual union occurred as result of the act of Union 1707, which involved no invasion whatsoever. (If I recall my books, the English Parliament agreed the act of Union in 1706, and it was actually the Scottish Parliament's agreement that set the year for the actual event).
History's fun.
dig aaaa theregister.com returned AAAA resources yesterday, but not today.
Yup, apologies, it was turned on by default which was fine while we were preparing, and we didn't "really" get many users on dot com, but now that we've switched I've turned it off as forums (and other bits) aren't yet ready for it.
Luckily this time (unlike on channelreg, where it happened a bit too much) no forum posts were "lost" (well, "saved" to /dev/null) due to (our own, self-inflicted, hopefully soon fixed) IPv6 "issues".
Anticipating the demise of the UK and the dissolution of the .uk registry after Wales & Scotland become independent, and NI joins the rest of Ireland.
The United Kingdom of England just doesn't have much of a ring to it. And if the English people then decide to get rid of Queenie thanks to her resolute failure to do anything to protect her subjects from her ministers, then it's even less appropriate.
The full title is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and (Northern) Ireland.
If (Northern) Ireland leaves the union then we go back to being Great Britain, which in practical terms means that we lose the red X in the flag and use the flag of Great Britain again. If Scotland left the union of Great Britain afterwards then we'd just be England.
And if the English people then decide to get rid of Queenie thanks to her resolute failure to do anything to protect her subjects from her ministers, then it's even less appropriate.
Sure. Let's have a vote on it with a simple question.
Do you wish to:-
1) Abolish the Monarchy.
2) Abolish Parliament.
The dissolution of whichever has totally lost the public confidence to be carried out by the other, along with devising a suitable replacement. I'd be perfectly happy with this. The only people who wouldn't be happy with this are those people who talk a lot about what the public want, but don't want to ask them because they know full well that one of the above would get eliminated by a landslide, and it's not the one they'd want.
Also with 1, remember that the monarch owns certain businesses. The income of those (the crown estate) is paid into the treasury. Out of that, 20% is then paid to the Royal family, which is an 80% rate of taxation and by far the highest rate paid in the UK.
So the monarchy doesn't cost the taxpayer anything. The taxpayer in fact gets paid by the monarchy.
2. Meh, creating something better than the current half millennia old mess can't be difficult and creating a range of options and then putting them to a referendum would be perfectly feasible.
I have roughly 2000 contacts in Outlook. Of those there is just one with a .eu email address, but the company no longer exists.
There are two with .eu.com - not sure if that's covered.
The vast majority of .eu sites just redirect to a national domain, so no great loss there.
Interesting stat would be how many UK companies have a .eu address with no representation outside the UK - probably very few.
"Fuck EU." was the sole content of the letter I sent to my MP the morning after the 2016 referendum.
Dear [MP's name],
Fuck EU.
Yours sincerely,
Juvenile but a source of great personal satisfaction. I never did get a reply, although he did get upset when I wrote to him telling him to leave the House of Commons because he was betraying the British people.
It is.
He also said in the house of commons that "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
The numbers of UK-based .eu domains are surely better contextualised if the reader is told how many there are in total: is ~300k domains a drop in the .eu ocean, most of it, or about what you'd expect, given the sizes of the UK and the EU?
So, I went and searched for the appropriate number, and according to the latest EURid report, there are 3.7 million registered domain names in .eu, as of March 2019.
Roughly 300,000 is roughly 10% of the total, not quite a drop in the ocean. And the domain is more of a puddle. I've never really understood the need for .eu which I've always seen as an attempt to aggrandise the miniscule rather like van owners describing themselves as a logistics company (got a mate somewhere else in the country = logistics group, got a shed = logistics and warehousing, your mate's back in Poland = .eu) Try searching for Siemens.eu or Philips.eu
I always felt Cyprus missed a trick by not creating a series of .cy TLDs
consultan, curren, ermergen and so forth
OTOH I wonder how many companies are regretting their Colombian registration as their customers blindly add an m, .uk .jp
I doubt the deal with the U.S is going to be any where near as massive as advertised, first trade deals frequently fail to live up to the hype, and with Boris' red lines on agriculture and pharmaceuticals, it's unlikely the things he wants are going to be offered up without serious concessions. Lighthizer isn't exactly a push over either.
>I doubt the deal with the U.S is going to be any where near as massive as advertised
You're forgetting, Boris has already got legislation going through Parliament removing Parliamentary scrutiny of trade negotations and deals; permitting his government to sign whatever deals they like... So expect regardless of whatever is actually signed it will be advertised as a "Titanic success", as for those red lines they won't care - just as they don't care about Cummings being found out for breaching CoVid19 guidelines, staying at his parents in a building built without planning permission...
Speaking of red lines, this just in:
Government ready to open British markets to chlorinated chicken for US trade deal
It's not the chlorine you need to worry about, but the bacteria it's temporarily hiding which will come back by the time the chicken is on your kitchen worktop.
In the US the problem is more in the handling than the cooking. Just washing a chicken breast under a tap can contaminate surrounding surfaces to the extent that it is generally safer to cook the chicken without washing. I assume that washing the chicken at the processing plant is meant to reduce this kind of cross contamination. Curious as to whether the same issue with washing applies to UK raised chicken.
There is official advice to avoid washing chicken:
Why you should never wash raw chicken
This just mentions campylobacter, not salmonella (maybe because campylobactor is the most common form of food poisoning in the UK).
Not quite sure how we forgot from grandfathering .eu domain names for the UK and British citizens to washing chicken but there you go.
Sorry, what exactly was keeping you from doing massive deals like that before ?
If I'm not mistaken, there already is volumes of commercial exchange between the UK and the USA and Australia as well. The Australian British Chamber of Commerce is touting its 110th birthday.
The EU was not keeping you from doing more.
Er, actually it was: no EU member is allowed to sign trade deals with non-member countries.
The Australian British Chamber of Commerce doesn't say otherwise.
Do you mean Britain has absolutely no say in EU trade deal negotiations?
And even if the UK could negotiate completely independently and bilaterally while being part of the EU, could it ever hope to achieve the same leverage as it did when negotiating deals as part of the EU whole?
I think the answers there are no and no.
This is where it gets interesting.
In negotiations between the EU and the USA they both have huge ranges of interests involved. For instance, the Germans want BMW/Volvo/ETC excluded from competition from cars imported from America, France wants food standards set to exclude pretty much anything coming in, but want to be able to send champagne out. Multiply this by the number of countries involved and you start to see the issues.
Our last car manufacturing concern on any notable scale was Rover, which went out of business fifteen years ago. Hence, no really great reason to protect our car industry. We don't need to do a deal for exporting champagne because we don't make any.
The number of areas we do care about is so small that while we don't have the leverage of scale, we also don't have as many vested interests to placate so in some respects we have an easier job.
It's what a sad, angry minority wanted
The only sad and angry people I see are the ones who wanted to stay, and if you're in a majority how come you lost a referendum and three elections? Those of us who didn't want to stay in a failing political and monetary polity are quite happy at the moment, if a bit irritated at the EU's continued determination to punish the UK even at the expense of making its own life difficult.
As for the .eu domains, apart from those used by EU bodies, like the somewhat tautological "europa.eu", most seem to have been bought more as as a defence against cyber squatters than from any especial EU commitment.
a bit irritated at the EU's continued determination to punish the UK
What's really irritating is the Brexit supporters constant cries of 'oh wow is us, the EU are pulling all the benefits of EU membership, we thought we could leave the club and retain all benefits'
Going by downvotes, the minority present on the reg are Brexit supporters.
If you want a more appreciative audience, the BBC forums seemed to be the place (or at least used to).
What's really irritating is the Brexit supporters constant cries of 'oh wow is us, the EU are pulling all the benefits of EU membership, we thought we could leave the club and retain all benefits'
Not at all. We leave, of course we lose benefits that exist only because of membership. There aren't as many as people like to suggest, many of the benefits agreed between EU members actually come from pre-existing international agreements. The EU requires that they exist as a condition of membership, but they aren't made possible only because of membership.
What irritates us is when a particular proposed arrangement is clearly of some benefit to both the EU and a non-member like the UK, but the EU refuses to agree because any apparent benefit to the UK post-Brexit is unacceptable, even if it also benefits the EU.
All along the EU have been the sane one in the negotiation. The Brexit buffoons are basically like members of a golf club who resign their membership and are then upset that a) the club won't let them play without paying green fees, b) that they arent allowed to take the loo roll 'that their subscriptions bought' and c) the club won't let them buy drinks at the members-only bar because they aren't a member even though this means the club losing bar takings.
There isn't one single negative stance taken by the EU that wasn't predicted and clearly signposted pre-referendum.
Except, as an example, the EU's position on fishing is ridiculous. It is 'let us fish in your waters or we won't let you sell any fish to us at all'. This is nothing but bullying, pure and simple. Now, the EU is able to bully us because we are a smaller nation, but this doesn't stop it being a totally lopsided position.
Similarly, there are not many (I think, zero) trade deals between two territories where disputes between them are settled in a one of the territories' domestic courts. This would be considered grossly and manifestly unfair by the other country, and with good reason. All courts are biased towards their own population, and that is why independent or joint courts are usual. The EU comes out with some guff about the UK being geographically close to the EU as a reason for why they want to assume control of the UK's law, but it's garbage and they know it. Even Trump and his NAFTA 2 doesn't do this kind of stuff.
Brexit was utter stupidity, but it's difficult to see the current EU negotiating position as anything other than an attempt to turn the UK into a supplicant state.
Are you saying the UK don't hold all the cards, or the EU just doesn't understand how strong the UK position is? Or perhaps the EU isn't actually going to be insolvent without Britain's cash?
At least take solace in that "There is no plan for no deal because [the UK] are going to get a great deal".
Kidding aside, it's so adorable when Brexiteers are so concerned about what's good for the EU or whinge about unfair treatment when they can't get their precious Canada deal. Welcome to realpolitik, it's how sovereigns roll.
At the moment we are continuing to witness the sham trade talks.
The realpolitik begins when the German paymasters stop messing around and make choices that are good for the European countries that pay the bills.
That's not saying the Germans will rollover and accept any or all of the UK proposals, just that the current negotiations are focussed on what the EU wants to focus on and are pretending that member states will accept that.
Any trade deal needs ratification by all member states, including devolved assemblies. That's why Wallonia held up the Canadian deal so long, until it got additional structural support for their potato industry. The EU really isn't the monolith that you British think. Whatever deal emerges will have to benefit Estonia, Malta and Slovakia as well as Germany, France and Ireland if it's got any hope of approval. The UK team will be aware of this and should have been working for the past 3 years to build goodwill among smaller countries for their proposals.
Whatever deal emerges will have to benefit Estonia, Malta and Slovakia as well as Germany, France and Ireland if it's got any hope of approval.
Which demonstrates why the EU is such a poor idea, the only way anything like that will get approval is when it's watered down so much as to be useless, and disguised in so much ambiguous language that each member can interpret it to mean what they want. It's a pointless paper union, created so that politicians can feel they're doing something important, paid for by our taxes.
"The EU really isn't the monolith that you British think. Whatever deal emerges will have to benefit Estonia, Malta and Slovakia as well as Germany, France and Ireland if it's got any hope of approval."
The realpolitik of the situation is that if a deal will cost Germany or one of the other net contributors a significant amount of money because smaller states do not approve, the smaller states will be compensated financially rather than via specific clauses that they support/reject.
Using the Canadian deal as an example, the delays to the deal didn't significantly impact the status quo so there was no rush. The reverse is the case with the UK.
Again this isn't stating that the result will be more or less in the EU or UK's favour. Just that the final deal will ensure that the pain to the paymasters is at an acceptable level - whether that is including member state contributions if they require conditions or balancing contributions/subsidies for making additional allowances. The monolith will be replaced with two key leaders who will reach an "acceptable" conclusion. Realpolitik.
What irritates us is when a particular proposed arrangement is clearly of some benefit to both the EU and a non-member like the UK, but the EU refuses to agree because any apparent benefit to the UK post-Brexit is unacceptable, even if it also benefits the EU.
What would be the benefit for the EU in handing out .eu domains to non-EU organisations? Thruppence ha'penny in the grand scheme of things? I think we're overrating ourselves a bit, aren't we?
It's a domain name not anything particularly important once you have one - companies register multiple domain names because they either want to prevent domain squatters and protect their brand (a dubious claim since ICANN permitted virtually unrestricted TLDs) or regulatory requirements (i.e. the way the EU requires EU organisations to register).
We are effectively arguing about five categories of registrants:
a) those needing domains for regulatory requirements (either they remain part of the EU or can no longer use the domain post-Brexit)
b) those with corporate branding and trademarks that have EU offices
c) those with corporate branding and trademarks that don't have EU offices
d) those with .eu domains as no better domain was available
e) pure vanity domains
(a) is broken by Brexit and the domain name is of little relevance
(b) is likely a sizeable part of the domain registrations and are unaffected
(c) are in trouble, but then they are likely in trouble anyway post-Brexit if they do business in the EU. They will probably move into category (b)
(d) they will have to decide if it is worth opening an EU office to keep the brand. My suspicion is there are cheaper options but they might not have made any plans
(e) they get to save themselves some money and likely choose a more relevant alternative.
Companies I have been involved with fit firmly into categories (b) and (c) - looking at the actual hits on many of the domains, I was surprised many were kept.
On a scale of 1-100 of Brexit worries, this rates as almost trivially unimportant aside from knowing the registered domains may disappear come the end of the year.
The real impact is likely to be a cost savings for most of the unprepared companies and a tinge of regret at not cleaning up unneeded domains.
Just like every other day when they accidentally let forgotten domains expire or renew domains because they think it may still be needed in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
Phil: "a bit irritated at the EU's continued determination to punish the UK"
Phil: "Not at all. We leave, of course we lose benefits that exist only because of membership."
This is exactly the kind of thing which Taiwaz is talking about, Phil: Which is it? Are they removing the benefits of membership because we're not a member, or are they punishing the UK?
You can't have it both ways depending on how the debate is going for you. Apart from anything else, it makes trying to discuss the actual issues and challenges with brexiteers really boring and pointless and it doesn't move anything forward, and yet it is apparently the remainers who are the ones getting in the way of this project being a success. Unfortunately, projects do not become successful because of Electric Monk levels of belief. They become successful through pragmatism, realism, planning and problem-solving.
still sad, still angry, and even more of a minority now.
Proof, or is this just more desperate sour grapes? As I said above, I'm not at all sad, and irritated with the EU rather than angry. If we're more of a minority now, how did a pro-Brexit party get such a large majority in the last election?
They should be happy - they've destroyed the UK, they've got what they want.
I have absolutely no desire to destroy the UK, I want it to remain a strong world power. At the moment the person working hardest to destroy it is Nicola Sturgeon, with assistance from some EU members who would love the chance to smack the UK for daring to leave, and who have always found that a divide-and-conquer strategy is best for them. A United Kingdom had the power to make the EU's life difficult, 4 separate smaller squabbling nations would have been much easier to contain and ignore.
You may not want to destroy the UK - but a 7% hit to GDP is quite a good starter for 10. The only-reason that the Cummins party won the last election was because a) the opposition decided to sel-immolate on an altar of weirdly ambivalent 1970 student union trotskyism and b) the red top press barons in their French/channel Island/Australian hollowed out volvanoes want it. The last election was about as much about democracy as a North Korean hair cut of the year contest.
a 7% hit to GDP is quite a good starter
We always knew there would be a temporary hit while agreements are re-aligned. What's important is how far our GDP growth exceeds the EU's in 5-10 years. Brexit was never intended to be a short-term magic fix, it's a means to a long-term end.
Given that those smaller nations (or at least two of them, don't know about Wales) were very pro-EU in the Brexit vote, it takes no crystal ball to have seen that a vote for Brexit would undermine the Union, and therefore possibly leading to NI joining Eire and Scotland going independent. So the idea that a United Kingdom was going to forge ahead as a world power (since when?!? 1895? 1942?) was already a fantasy based on ignoring the evidence that Brexit was sure to undermine the Union.
BTW, according to Wikipedia, California is #4 in economic power, UK is #6, Texas is #9, and New York is #12. China, Japan and Germany are above the UK on this table. 6th position is very good, but is the argument that we can do great trade deals with Canada (#12) and Australia (#16) and say goodbye to Germany (#3), France (#7), Italy (#8) and Spain (#15). Oh, and there's India (#5, one up from us). We don't talk about them much.
That's a very flawed list, you can't really equate regions within a country to actual countries, or vastly different sized countries.
California #4, Texas #9, New York #12 - are soaking up cash from the rest of the national economy, what size would they be without the rest of the US providing a home market?
India & China have vastly larger populations, A billion near peasant level people in each blows the UK GDP numbers into the shade. Where are the filthy rich little gulf states on the list?
France is directly comparible with the UK with a similar size & population, and for years has been right next to us in the charts & numbers, Germany has about 30% larger population & ditto economy.
In a month or so the second quarter (pandemic shutdown) economic numbers will be released, any country not showing the worst decline in figures ever will be doing well.
"how did a pro-Brexit party get such a large majority in the last election?"
Oh FFS, not that again. People voted Tory because Labour, also pro-Brexit, was an even more scary prospect (or vice versa). There was no realistic anti-Brexit party to vote for. You vote for the party that most closely represents your views. That doesn't mean that you wholeheartedly support everything the party stands for or has made election promises on.
I have absolutely no desire to destroy the UK, I want it to remain a strong world power.
The UK hasn’t been a ‘strong world power’ for about 70 years at least. Although to be fair we did punch above our weight for a good few years afterwards, but even that facade has diminished somewhat.
But be in no doubt, few countries really give a shit what we think these days. (And personally, I’m okay with that. Let others play at empire building. We had our turn and all the good and bad that came with it).
The UK hasn’t been a ‘strong world power’ for about 70 years at least.
It's very sad when people, especially British people, still peddle that nonsense. The UK is a major economic and political power, much more than it's size would normally suggest. Anyone blind to that either is not paying attention, or has a serious inferiority complex.
@Phil: "At the moment the person working hardest to destroy it is Nicola Sturgeon, with assistance from some EU members who would love the chance to smack the UK for daring to leave, and who have always found that a divide-and-conquer strategy is best for them."
Once again, a Brexiter using the same argument *against* Scottish independence that they used *for* coming out of the EU. You can't have it both ways - either independence* is good for all or it isn't good for anyone. What is it about the English that makes them want to keep a failing union together? Is it that they know that the Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are a huge net benefit to them?
*Note: being a member of the EU never actually took away independence from the UK in any meaningful sense.
either independence* is good for all or it isn't good for anyone.
That's overly simplistic, and of course can be looked at the other way around: if being in the EU is so good, why do the Scottish Nationalists want to leave the UK?
The reality is far more complex, and needs to consider exactly what sort of union is involved. The UK has been a fairly successful and well-integrated political and economic union for 300+ years, the EU was a successful economic arrangement but has never had any real sense of political or cultural community. The main reason that Sturgeon & co want to leave seems more to be based on the idea of gaining some sort of glory for righting an ancient wrong, irrespective of any future harm. I really doubt if many English folks care whether Scotland goes or stays, except perhaps those close to the border who would have to handle the resulting mess, much as those in Ireland did in the 1920s.
"... if being in the EU is so good, why do the Scottish Nationalists want to leave the UK?" You answer it yourself - "... consider exactly what sort of union is involved."
"The UK has been a fairly successful and well-integrated political and economic union for 300+ years,.." Yes, for the English.
_and if you're in a majority how come you lost a referendum and three elections_
Maths is how. The majority *of people that voted* is not the same as the majority of the country. Also, the majority of people who voted in the 2019 and 2017 elections voted for someone other than the conservatives (before you take into consideration that 1/3 of the country didn't vote).
If you leave the golf club, you aren't allowed to still use the course.
A sensible club would allow you to use the course if you paid visitors' green fees, knowing that you'd spend money in the bar afterward as well, and would welcome reciprocal playing agreements on your course. The EU just threw up a fence around the course, while those outside spend their money elsewhere.
My experience with visitor's passes is that I have come in with a friend but needed to be a member, so got a one-day pass,or I could buy passes but was limited to about four a year. And I had restrictions. One is that I had to pay full-price at the bar. So 'sensible clubs' don't offer membership benefits to non-members. That would make them not a members-club but something else.
And I was not the owner of another club, so could not offer reciprocal goodies. That argument suggests that the EU and the UK could set up an agreement for mutual benefit, which would be a trade agreement. Which is what May was trying to do. But the no-deal Brexiters seem not even to want that.
A sensible club would allow you to use the course if you paid visitors' green fees, knowing that you'd spend money in the bar afterward as well, and would welcome reciprocal playing agreements on your course. The EU just threw up a fence around the course, while those outside spend their money elsewhere.
What the poor old Brexiteers still can't get their heads around, is that by leaving we didn't only become proud ex-members, but deliberately made ourselves competitors to our now rivals.
By competition's nature they have no choice but to try to win, just as we shall try in return --- we were the ones who rejected co-operation. The odds of our beating them and not becoming poorer as a nation are barely existent.
Vae Victis
"Nothing but patronising insults"
I think we must be reading different threads. I see a thread of interesting debate where every brexiteer argument is torn apart with facts and logic, and a very few tiny insults and jibes put in for fun to make things bearable.
Literally 99% of this thread is not "patronising insults"
All brexiteers do when they say this kind of thing is prove they're not paying attention. It's a shame, because this could otherwise be a very healthy debate indeed.
this could otherwise be a very healthy debate indeed.
Only if the remainers would accept that leavers have valid economic and political arguments for their position (even though they disagree with them). Unfortunately, most of them seem incapable of accepting that, and so fall back to blaming it on stupidity or xenophobia, which only demonstrates their limited understanding of the real world, and how it works.
"than from any especial EU commitment"
I bought my .eu domain name for exactly that reason.
If a bunch of people in another country (I'm not UK resident) are going to tear away half of my identity, then I plan to let it be known that they are removing the wrong half.
I even tweaked the colours on the site to use the same shades of yellow and blue as the EU flag. Because I may not be a European politically, but emotionally and spiritually I am and will always be. Fuck anybody who thinks they can take that away from me.
if you're in a majority how come you lost a referendum and three elections?
For the referendum (which legally wasn't a refrerendum, as a referendum requires specific acts of parliament to be passsed specifying the legally binding requirements of the outcome of the referendum before it is held, it was legally an opinion poll), I'd put it down to the massive fraud and outright lies conducted by the leave campaign - £350m/week savings - and the apathy of the voting public, especially the younger - who didn't bother to vote because they didn't think leave would ever win, nor did the Prime Minister who started it, they never thought it would win, they thought they were just pandering to a minority who'd lose but have enough votes to ensure election victory.
As to the elections, people generally don't vote for MPs or governments based on a single issue, that is not how the paradigm of the entire system is based on. Candidates have policies on a range of issues, and it's the totality of those policies and issues that are the basis of voting for a candidate. Unfortunately, the leave campaign reverbrated so strongly amongst the ignorant minority that do vote based on single issues, thus betraying the paradigm the entire electoral system is based on, that tipped the balance.
When you ask the general population what they want in a simple yes/no vote, the outcome will be a defacto ruling, quoting 'law' as to why they can be ignored will not end well.
You accept the results of all public votes* or become a dictatorship. The impact of any particular decision cannot overide this principle.
*The premise is that all those allowed to vote make their decision based on whatever they individually feel to be relevant, irrespective of what others may consider important.
"We're joining the ranks of non-EU countries whose residents can't own .eu domains without good reason. No more, no less. This is what we wanted, isn't it?"
This isnt about us, it is entirely about the EU doing something so monumentally stupid to hurt themselves. Think of the article as one about a stropy kid unhappy we dont want to play with them so they are slapping themselves.
Regardless of where you come down on the brexit debate the EU is cutting off a load of revenue and screwing its reputation by literally stealing (taking away a paid for service without compensation) for no good reason. It isnt the norm to cut off domains, maybe let them expire and not renew but not cut them off.
Hence this is nothing more than self harm for the sake of being stropy. Its of no consequence to the UK but does have direct and indirect consequence for the EU.
@FrogsAndChips
"While I disapprove the move, you can't call it "literally stealing" as it was stated in the T&C's"
I guess on a technicality it isnt, that is fair to say. But by action they will be removing someones legal property without compensation and possibly not due to their action (I suspect those with EU addresses and care about it are pro-EU).
@foo_bar_baz
"It’s not the EU who has hurt itself, as is evident from where the squeals are emitted from."
Yet again I will mention that this article is like an article about someone hitting themselves because we wont play with them. Yes there are squeals but likely in amusement or pity depending how much a person dislikes the EU.
And the EU keep our attention on this by repeatedly changing their minds on if they are going to hit themselves or not. It isnt the UK that gets money from EU domains and for the few who care its easy to get around, but it is the EU putting themselves in a very bad light as decision makers and competent ones.
For an article like this it doesnt matter if you are pro-EU or pro-Leave this is watching self harm.
For full disclosure I'm not British, just a massive Anglophile being tested severely by the misguided filth being spewed in British public discourse.
Firstly, how is it self harm? Missing out on domain payments? Meaningless. To repeat, the .eu domain is quite obviously not intended to be a money making enterprise, but a service for EU member entities, as is evident from the policy of not selling it to everyone.
Secondly, you're looking for a pattern where none exists. The EU, as member countries or as an organisation, don't care about your domain payments. There is no conspiracy against Britain or thirst for retaliation. Why would a bunch of bureaucrats hold a grudge against you? Your politicians and media have built up this idea of Britain vs. EU conflict out of self interest. If it weren't foreigners or the EU, they'd pitch another imaginary bogeyman for you to hate.
I'm not a huge fan of the EU but it's the best we have as a collection of small to medium sized countries in a dog-eat-dog world. Or eagle-and-bear-and-dragon-eat-everyone else world to be more precise. Best wishes to Britain in your adventure.
@foo_bar_baz
"For full disclosure I'm not British, just a massive Anglophile being tested severely by the misguided filth being spewed in British public discourse."
No worries. I am British and about as impressed.
"Firstly, how is it self harm? Missing out on domain payments? Meaningless"
Yes it is meaningless. This is a trivial issue of no grand importance. Which is why watching the EU handle this so badly is self harm. First they made this decision without informing their own people. Those managing the EU TLD found out through the news, and since it breaks from the norm the TLD guys completely disowned it and dropped the politicians in it by telling everyone they didnt have a hand in the decision nor know about it. That made it look like a toddler strop and highly disorganised.
Since then the decision has had so many revisions it looks like the EU is incompetent. The effects being to provide a huge demonstration of stupidity publicly, as well as the reduced revenue and trust in EU domains but likely to spill into distrust over the EU handling other things too. If they cant handle something so trivial like grown-ups then how can they do X, Y, Z.
All of that is a loss to the EU and for what gain? Zilch. They lose out and look stupid. As I said I dont think this is a pro-EU/Leave thing this is just blazing stupidity they would be best just leaving alone and not reminding people of how they handled this.
"There is no conspiracy against Britain or thirst for retaliation. Why would a bunch of bureaucrats hold a grudge against you?"
Actually there are bureaucrats in the EU with a grudge against us, often enough to our amusement. That doesnt mean they all are but some are just twerps as we have some twerps in ours.
"Your politicians and media have built up this idea of Britain vs. EU conflict out of self interest"
To a point. It seems more an internal conflict of those who wish to remain vs those who voted to leave. People voted to leave consistently over numerous votes which of course is part of the problem. We decided, that is it. But stirring up conflict buys some votes and sells some news.
@foo_bar_baz
For full disclosure I'm not British, just a massive Anglophile being tested severely by the misguided filth being spewed in British public discourse.
The trick is to understand that what you read on public discussion forums, social media etc is not reflecting real life. Social media like twitter etc tends to attract comments from nutters and focuses them together making it appear that they are more prevalent than they really are.
It would have been more useful if the EU had, as has been suggested, introduced some sort of "Associate EU citizenship" open to any UK citizen who wanted it. Then they could have a .eu if they wanted, as they would still be EU entities. It may still come as a last minute two-fingers to Johnson.
Makes perfect sense and in a way I wish more orgs would do the same. From its inception .eu has been marketed as being a domain specifically for EU entities, so if a site is on a .eu domain you know it's definitely got a presence within the EU. If they let us keep our .eu domains without requiring a presence there then that main selling point is gone.
There are quite enough "x always works like this... oh except in these cases" on the internet, we don't need to add another one. "Yes, all .eu domains belong to companies within the EU... oh unless they were registered before 2021 in which case they might be in the UK, but thanks to GDPR you can't actually tell cos it won't show up in WHOIS".
as is evident from where the squeals are emitted from.
Mostly, it seems, from UK nationals who hold .eu domains, but don't want the bother of setting up an EU base to keep them. How hard would it be to get an accommodation address in an EU country like, say, Ireland? For that matter, Belfast would probably work, accepted as part of the UK but I doubt the EU would want to open a can of worms by claiming it isn't in Ireland!
@Robert Grant
"This isn't monumentally stupid. It's just the rules for owning a .eu domain. Nothing debatably stupid's being "done" other than Brexit itself; this is just a totally normal consequence."
So a normal consequence of brexit is for the EU to tie their knickers in a knot over TLD's? Not only to break from the tradition of not messing with it but to be so indecisive about the issue by repeatedly changing their mind?
This is after making it look like a toddlers tantrum by declaring the removal initially so the EU TLD guys find out from the freaking news! So the very people in charge of the TLD turn around and say its nothing to do with them, its politicians and they didnt even bother to mention it?
The entire handling of this (non)issue has been monumentally stupid. If you consider that normal then we are absolutely in need of getting away from the EU pronto.
If we're going to be confirmed in our exit because people are not behaving nicely, then it's going to be tricky negotiating with the Americans, who are famously not nice even to long-standing trading partners, such as Canada and Mexico. They throw a strop and act as if they are victims and then tighten the screws. We won't exactly be in a position to say that we need to get away from these tantrums pronto.
@Hollerithevo
"We won't exactly be in a position to say that we need to get away from these tantrums pronto."
Why not? Trading with others is not the same as coming under their rule. We can trade without selling the country out to another gov to run. We are talking about a gov that sits above the UK gov and is hurting themselves for no apparent gain. We would care less if we only traded with them.
"We can trade without selling the country out to another gov to run."
When did that happen? The UK had a very powerful position in the EU, and rarely lost what it wanted. With derogations, it was very much a deal in which the UK took what it wanted and ignored what it didn't. That's a very funny version of "selling the country for another gov to run". Now, if you want examples of countries run by another gov, let's look at Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Catalonia etc in which another country takes all the taxes and gives back what's left after the dominant bit has had its pick.
@Intractable Potsherd
"When did that happen?"
Gold plating EU directives into our laws for a start.
"it was very much a deal in which the UK took what it wanted and ignored what it didn't"
Thats an interesting view. But there is a split between gov (who wants to be in the EU) and the electorate obviously. We didnt get what we wanted even if the few did. I do have a very clear memory of Tony Blair absolutely guaranteeing our rebate was not up for negotiation, just before it was renegotiated. Apparently the stupid expense of our CO2 efforts is because Blair offered to cut our total emissions when his advisers told him only for energy production.
But then there was little doubt Blair wanted to be EU president so he sold us willingly.
@Intractable Potsherd
"Gold-plating was nothing to do with the EU, and everything to do with those people you want to have sole law-making powers."
Yes, the same people (Blair particularly) who would sell his own grandmother never mind our country just to suck up to the EU for a job. So yes I want the law making powers in the UK instead of directives which come from those we cannot throw out and then have some scum here gold plate it for personal gain.
Not sure the EU are getting their knickers in a twist or whether it's even a big deal. The rule is that European Union members can hold an .eu domain the UK is likely to leav with no deal so that would make it break all EU ties. No kicker twisting, no retaliation just a simple rule for that domain.
It's not like the EU want clauses throughout all their legal frameworks that state (*except the UK as it was once a member of the EU and is available for a period a x years after the date they finally leave etc).
In fact I would say looking at your comments the only one getting their knickers in a twist is you, codejunky. Therefore reality biting is a little too much to take in right now?
Personally the impact of potentially having to get a visa for every visit to the EU is more of a pain than losing rights to a .EU and no longer being able to easily get work or buy a house in Europe is much more of a hassle but even then I wouldn't think it is the EU getting their knickers in a twist if that was the case.
@Hollerithevo
"They are legally fine on this, and if we think they are being stroppy and childish, well, that is their right."
Very true. Just as its our right to have voted leave and have no business stuck under these people who act so childish and stroppy. But since we are stuck with them under this current extension I will continue to comment on the continued articles about the EU's latest revision. As stated in the article-
"even though the decision has already cut income to the registry and undermined its standing."
An "almost certain" no deal Brexit will be vastly more complicated to navigate for most businesses than a change of domain name. Not least, the issue that nobody, right up to ministerial level, has been willing to discuss with my consultancy is that some of the standard contractual clauses we're supposed to implement once the UK is a third country aren't actually GDPR compliant.
"Westminster, we could have a problem..."
"The main beneficiary of the .eu registry business? The European Union itself."
Money isn't everything. A difficult concept for UK, I know.
The whole concept of making sheadloads of money from internet domain names is wrong from the very start. Basically the registrars themselves are massive cyber-squatters that have take over something that isn't theirs in the first place.
"even though the decision has already cut income to the registry and undermined its standing."
Maybe they have realised they already shot themselves in the foot and looking like incompetent fools wont change anyones opinion of them by changing their mind again. They are already taking damage for their self harm efforts, maybe they think it cant get any worse (I am sure they will find a way).
I somehow think that the EU registry will cope with the grievous loss of its UK registrants.
Money isn't everything, and sometimes it helps to have rules that are generally adhered to, isn't that right Dominic?
But when we think we are exceptional, obviously everyone else is to blame and/or a fool.
If the latter, oh well one of the "costs" of not being under the control of Brussels is gone.
If the former, maybe it proves that some of those evil, lying Brexiteers might have had a point about the EU's taking things that don't belong to them.
Either way, I don't have an EU domain so I don't care.
"I always thought .eu was for European nations, not the European Union."
The EU has a habit of adopting European organisations that were created as independent collaborations prior the EU existing. After 2016 suddenly everyone was worried about our membership of them being removed. The EU has been steadily convincing everyone over time that it IS Europe rather than just a political organisation WITHIN Europe. It was convenient for many orgs to reorganise under the EU, but that doesn't mean their membership is restricted to the EU.
One could say that a .eu domain should only be available to true EU companies (Societas Europaea). In April 2018 there were 3000 registrations TOTAL, where as the UK had over 600,000 company registrations in the prior YEAR alone, and still well over 120,000 that year when dissolved companies are removed from the number. This would drop total .eu domain registrations by 99.9%.
"Sure, it may not affect you, but apparently you do care, otherwise why post on this topic?"
I don't care because I don't have an EU domain, so losing the chance of it doesn't give me a problem. And I posted on the article because I wanted to find out if .EU means "Europe" or "member of the European Union". It looks like it is supposed to be "Europe" but the European Parliament have decided to claim it for themselves. Which, it seems, is par for the course - they never actually produce anything themselves (except firelighters) but are more than happy to take all the profits from other people's efforts. You can tell they are getting desperate when they start trying to dictate more and more to the very people they have been relying on to bankroll them for years - the German bankers.
If the EU "leaders" keep going the way they are and alienating their biggest backers, it won't be long before the EU collapses in a horrifying mess. Maybe the UK is better of getting out now, after all?
And I posted on the article because I wanted to find out if .EU means "Europe" or "member of the European Union". It looks like it is supposed to be "Europe" but the European Parliament have decided to claim it for themselves.
The .eu domain was created for the European Union (EURid are the managers), not for the geographical region of Europe.
From timeline information:
The .eu TLD was added to the root zone of the Internet Domain Name System in March 2005. That means that, technically speaking, .eu has been in existence since then.
EURid was founded in April 2003 by the three organisations operating the national registries for Belgium, Italy and Sweden. Later the organisations operating the TLDs for the Czech Republic and for Slovenia also became members. The European Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC) joined EURid in 2006, followed by the Business Europe organisation in 2007.
Between December 7, 2005 and April 6, 2006, the .eu registry began accepting applications for domain names on a limited basis. Only those individuals and organisations holding some type of legal protection for a name within a Member State of the European Union was eligible to apply for domain names during that time. This period of phased registration is referred to as the Sunrise period.
And the IANA delegation record has a delegation report linked to it, that states in the IANA report:
In August of 1999 the twoletter code “eu” was and is set forth on the ISO 3166-1 list (http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prodsservices/iso3166ma/index.html) maintained by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166/MA) as the approved alpha2 code for the European Union.
So .eu is and always has been a European Union TLD. (Which is basically what the wikipedia entry states, but to avoid any "Duh, that's from wikipedia, I don't trust wikipedia" I used some of the referenced source material from IANA and EURid)
Honestly, I can't remember when I encountered a .eu domain... I'm not even sure I encountered one beyond some EU institutional sites.
While I've necountered plenty .uk, .fr, .de, .se, .dk, .no, and even some .us sites.
who would want to keep a .eu if they can have the same name with their country tld ?
who would want to keep a .eu if they can have the same name with their country tld ?
Sometimes words or expressions require an .eu ending, and simply don't work with a ctld: achwatsn.eu, wasistn.eu, parbl.eu. achwats.nl? wasistn.de? parbl.fr?
Using ctlds for those would have people thinking whatthefc.uk.
Nobody is stealing, self-harming, being stupid or taking things that don't belong to them.
The pre-existing rules stated quite clearly who can and who can not hold a .eu domain name. If you are no longer entitled to hold one, no matter what the reason, then in line with the agreement that you signed when you registered it in the first place, it will be withdrawn. The only thing the EU or the relevant TLD can be accused of is in dithering about when that will happen. I suspect they are being deliberately lenient to give people affected time to make alternate arrangements but it is equally possible that they are just incompetent.
The only thing the EU or the relevant TLD can be accused of is in dithering about when that will happen.
And that came about because the UK could not and would not decide if or when it was leaving and on what terms, sought extension after extension, would not say if it would commit to a transition period or not. We moved the goalposts and deadlines, attempted to alter what had seemingly been agreed, on a regular basis.
The EU did the best they could while accommodating our indecisiveness. But the terminally 'not stupid' still insist "it's all because they hate us".
Plenty of small-medium European e-tailers have .uk versions of their web sites to market to UK customers, e.g. alpinetrek.co.uk -> bergfreunde.de.
Of course they may decide it's no longer worth the candle when VAT rules, customs, and regulatory divergence start getting in the way, so the number might reduce anyway, regardless of .uk TLD rules.
How dare they remove the rights to use something that we have voted to say that we no longer want to be part of.
As a British citizen it is my historic right and duty to claim ownership and rights of any part of the world that I see fit, despite any objections of the existing inhabitants and if I want to claim my company is still part if the EU with a .eu domain name despite me telling you quite forcible that I don't want to be part of the EU then that is my right and no Johnny foreigner is going to tell me different, similarly if i want to reside in the EU, trade with you, etc. Who do they think they are, the bloody EU government. Don't they know only English people actually follow laws
As I told my ex-wife yesterday, just because we had a acrimonious divorce, should not stop me sleeping with her when I want to, or claiming that I still live at her address. Just the fact we have told the EU that we hate you and want nothing more to do with you, does not remove my right to want to operate exactly as if we are best of friends.
Still when you no longer get my £2:50 (0.03 Euro's as adjusted for the exchange rate), we will see who is having the last laugh
>As a British citizen it is my historic right and duty to claim ownership and rights of any part of the world that I see fit, despite any objections of the existing inhabitants
Didn't end too well in 1783, perhaps Johnson should try that approach on the current inhabitant of the White House...
"The decision to withdraw domains goes against a long tradition"
A long tradition indeed! I remember when my father's father was reminiscing about how his own father's father had registered a domain, and then Napoleon or Nicholas 2 or some such came and tried to take it over from him, and he had to go fetch his pitchfork to keep the henchmen at bay!
Oh, hey, no, when I was born, DNS did not even exist. So much for that long tradition crap that Kieren is keen on yammering about when he whines about .eu. It's really the one topic I disagree with him wholeheartedly :D
There must be a joke in there about millennials and their supposedly short attention span.
Offended, outraged, appalled, sickened by the EU's behaviour over this hallowed tradition that goes back to Richard the Lion-Hearted, the Brexiters surely have right on their side. Funny how something that nobody has much emotional energy about, TLDs, becomes a synecdoche for all the evils of the EU and can be fomented over as YET ANOTHER example for European perfidy and proof that we are well out.
Well, I live in the EU, so I can register a .eu site.
So, nice little earner - bung us a grand, I'll register your site here, then you can continue to use/admin. it as you wish.
Lovely Jubbly! (Should, as a disclaimer point out I'm 64, and expected to croak at any time, due to health, but...one of my kids is Finnish, he'd take it on.)
Problem solved?
.eu-gate remains a microcosm of why sane people (much less a large number of Europe's nutjobs) feel that "GTFO of Dodge" is the proper response to remaining involved in the EU.
Seriously, FOUR TIMES .eu policy needs to be revised, and not just on the details, but the whole concept of whether British people should ultimately surrender their .eu domains? The EU has somehow managed to make this into an example of both process-enslaved bureaucracy and noblesse oblige caprice. This takes real talent in pettifoggery.
And as I have now had the opportunity to point out at least three other times in the past (Thanks, EU!) the Brits who have .eu domains and will get put out by this policy swing are more-likely-as-not europhiles. So the EU is punishing their own political allies in Britain over this issue. And those people, who again were at least once probably europhiles, now have an extra added reason to migrate their domains to something else, simply because they cannot risk that the EU won't flip-flop on this yet another time, or two, or three, and these .eu holders need some predictability when they are talking about their internet brand.
Dismal.
The policy being revised four times was mostly due to EURid setting a date than the UK kicking the Brexit can down the road meaning EURid's policy has to be updated.
Could we work out the relative dismalness of both the UK's can kicking and EURid's policy changes which are mostly a reaction to said can kicking?
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