However you may feel about the UK’s EU referendum result, there’s no escaping the fact that such a massive regime change as Brexit will have repercussions across all walks of life.
We’ve all read about how it could affect food and medicine supply, the aviation industry and financial services. Well Brexit is now set to make its first concrete change to the World Wide Web.
Following instruction from the European Commission, EURid (European Registry for Internet Domains) has just confirmed that only those with a registered address inside the European Union will able to own a .eu domain after Brexit. This measure applies to all existing and future registrations.
What this means for you
If you don’t have or need a .eu domain name, you have nothing to fear. But if you do, and only have a UK address, you will need to transfer it, or you will lose it.
Port 80 Services is registered in France, so none of the domain names we manage will be affected by the change in law. If you need to keep your .eu domain, simply get in touch with us before the new legislation comes into effect.
This will be
30 March 2019 (in the event of a no-deal exit by the UK), or
01 January 2021 (assuming a deal is reached)
Of course, there’s always a possibility that Brexit never ultimately occurs, or that future negotiations negate this decision… But if you have an .eu domain and no EU address, we’d advise you to play safe and let us register it on your behalf before its too late.