European Commission says United Kingdom registrants will not be able to renew their domains after Brexit is completed.
Last year a DNW Podcast listener asked me what Brexit would mean for people in the UK. At the time, it was unclear.
It’s looking more and more likely that they will lose their domain names because they will no longer be eligible registrants. Michele Neylon of Blacknight noted that the European Commission sent a letter yesterday explaining how this will work:
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.
Ouch.
Of course, there are lots of proxies people can use to generally get around residency and other eligibility requirements. And there’s still time to lobby…
Dom says
.EU Domains is a part of the EEA agreement & this scenario would happen only if UK formally withdraws from EEA by triggering Art. 127 of the EEA agreement. When the UK withdraws from the EU, there is no provision in the EEA deal for UK membership to lapse.
Chris says
What’s one more kick in the teeth?
Me says
But they’ll still go by an English moniker!