The owners of .EU domains from the U.K. are set to lose their websites according to the order given by U.K.’s domain registrar community. With this decision, major organizations in the U.K., right from finance to online retail will be affected, causing potentially a major disruption for businesses.
EURID (.EU’s domain operator) say that they had outlined the European Commission’s directive on how Britain’s exit from the EU (European Union) is likely to affect the U.K. registrants of .EU domain. They say that these directives were discussed with the domain registrar community of the U.K. to understand their view and take action on the same.
By ordering more than 380,000 .EU domain names to be deleted, EURID say that the businesses holding this domain will be affected the most. They claim that the transition to other domains for organizations owning this domain will be painstaking.
In spite of flexibility terms being discussed for .EU’s U.K. registrants in April, the decision to revoke such a large number of users has been met with confusion amongst the registrars in U.K., according to EURID. They also say that as a stop-gap, recommendations such as choosing a .EU.COM domain and registering .EU from a non-U.K. address are being floated.
In closing, the domain operator said that the last date to overturn this decision via a mutual agreement is 30th March 2019. If the due date passes, EURID say that they will be deleting all the .EU domain names held by U.K. users.