There's a big downside to using .kz in that the registry has a policy (as per https://nic.kz/rules/) that .kz hostnames must relate to "Internet resources" located on hardware and software located within the territory of Kazakhstan.
I think the OP is OK as it appears the IP addresses of both the A and MX records are located within Kazakhstan, but something to be aware of if you think registering a .kz is a fun idea(!) :-)
This is something to keep in mind with all TLDs really. They're not all created equal and can be subject to rules specific to their operators. Have to do your homework before you buy that cute domain.
The EU continues to control .eu because it is available only to EU citizens. Nothing changed.
Your surprise exactly reflects the typical beliefs of a Brexit supporter, you thought the idea is you get to keep all the benefits you had before, and also you get rid of any downsides you didn't like, and somehow it's the EU's job to help you achieve this after you leave.
That didn't make any sense in 2016, and it still didn't make any sense in 2020, and so unsurprisingly here we are in 2021 and it isn't what happened. "We told you so" is boring but it's true. We told you so.
It might make sense for certain Internet resources to be made available only to citizens of some political region. It might make sense to revoke access to such resources if an individual renounced their citizenship or loses it due to their own actions (like, say, treason). But it really doesn’t make much sense that I could lose access to an arbitrary Internet resource I legitimately possessed because of large-scale political changes unrelated to my actions as an individual.
> "After large-scale political changes I want there be no changes that might affect me personally."
.eu domain has certain registration requirements:
- A Union citizen, independently of their place of residence.
- A natural person who is not a Union citizen and who is a resident of a Member State.
- An undertaking that is established in the Union.
- An organization that is established in the Union, without prejudice to the application of national law.
Its completely normal for entities to stop servicing other entities after they aren´t in accordance of laws or rules.
Both forms of Internet naming semantics make sense to me. Unfortunately, we've never reached any consensus or understanding at all about which apply where, or how to tell. That leaves us in this kind of crummy middle ground where different TLDs do or don't assert things about their registrants, to a degree that can change over time, and there's not an easy way to check. (You could read the NIC web site, if it's up-to-date, if it's in a language you speak, and if its stated policies actually correspond to its practices...)
It's not surprising at all that people's intuitions about a particular TLD would diverge. But it's sad, because it means the Internet naming system isn't working well in terms of the function of letting users know what particular names mean.
It's not crazy to imagine either a TLD that says "despite any possible appearances to the contrary, this is a first-come-first-served namespace in which names have no extrinsic meaning at all" or a TLD that says "this TLD is owned by entity X, and subdomains, like subdomains of a corporate or governmental network, are only given to persons with an appropriate relationship with entity X, and only during the term of that relationship". (Maybe even a TLD that says "notionally this TLD is about topic or group Y, but our rules about what that means are kind of idiosyncratic".) (But if there are TLDs in all these categories in the same DNS, both registrants and Internet users are probably going to be unsure which is which, as well as exactly what the TLDs in the third group "really" mean.)
But this policy doesn't make sense for the EU either. They lose domain registration revenue. Thousands companies migrating to a new domain name will lead to confusion for EU citizens too, etc.
It just seems like a case of "we want it to be as painful as possible for you, even if we have to take a bit of additional pain for us too".
And so it should be. The Brexit should be as painful as possible for the UK. The more the UK is reminded of what they gave up, and what they will be missing, the better, as it positions them better for reentry.
Who cares about domain registration revenue? The only reason it isn't free is because of the administrative hassle of distributing frivolous domain registrations.
If EU citizens are confused about UK companies disappearing, maybe they'll search and be exposed to EU competitors, how could that be a bad thing?
I mean, almost the whole point of the British is that they fucked over everybody. Americans, Chinese, Russians, Australians, Canadians, Indians, all have plenty to blame the British for.
Even a bunch of people who by rational assessment would count as British can reasonably say the British fucked them over because of a series of Tory policies, first destroying the paperwork which proves they came here by invitation (on the Empire Windrush and other ships), and then insisting that since they don't have that paperwork if they haven't already secured citizenship papers they were never authorised to be here and must be sent "home" - in some cases forcibly deported to countries they hadn't been to in more than half a century. See "Windrush scandal".
I was unaware that such thing happened, and I'm kind of surprised as it sounds like somewhat un-EU-ish to me, but I obviously had the wrong sense of what is EU-ish. And I wholeheartedly support that. I mean, it makes sense. If the domain policy of *.eu says that it is for *.eu-based people and organizations, and you leave the EU, why the fuck should you keep it?
If EU wanted to make more money on it, it would have made it available for everyone from the start. If it doesn't... well, it just means domain-selling is not the core EU-business. So it's exactly one of the 2: either Russian and Japanese companies should be allowed to own *.eu domain, or British ones shouldn't. And I don't honestly care which one is it. But it cannot be both at the same time.
So, no, it's not about hurting you, it's simply about the fact that the world doesn't revolve around you. As surprising as it may sound.
They maintain sovereignty though. That’s more important than domain registration revenue.
If I somehow owned tax.gov, and was running a tax prep service from it, I doubt the “I’m grandfathered” argument would fly.
It’s likely similar to lawyers.eu (I made that domain up), etc; people should be able to expect that to be an EU based service, not something overseas.
But in the other scenario, they now have to deal with support queries ("why can they have a .eu when I can't?"), possibly legal action ("why can they have a .eu when I can't?"), etc.
> about a contract that explicitly says for EU members
...which would have some British businesses grandfathered in and therefore have a loophole that some enterprising lawyer can no doubt make a great deal of hay with.
1. The .eu TLD is supposed to signify that a business using it is part of the EU. That means EU consumers will know that EU regulations such as GDPR apply, they're unlikely to pay import/export taxes, etc. Allowing non-EU businesses to use it dilutes the purpose and value of the TLD.
2. The EU wants to avoid making freeloading look like a viable strategy. If Britain is able to leave the EU and still reap all the benefits of being an EU member, then what's the point of other nations staying in the EU? Domain names are obviously only a minor benefit of being in the EU but there's a reason this policy is being applied mostly across the board.
The EU domain is available to EU residents and citizens, not just citizens. I as a British citizen and EU resident am entitled to one (not that I have bothered - someone got the one I wanted first :O )
I guess an EU citizen living in the UK could also hold them on behalf of UK based UK citizens. Thinking about it this situation does seem a little convoluted...
.eu domain usage isn't that high, I don't think. I only have anecdata from my time in the UK, but .co.uk appears to be "the" domain to have in the UK.
From what I've seen the same is true on the continent. .fr and .de for example are highly popular in France and Germany. You rarely see local business reaching for .eu domains.
According to wikipedia, the number of affected domains is 344,584. Also compared to wiki there are 11M .uk domains and 16.5M .de domains. According to EurID[0] there are 3.7M .eu domains
It could be a fraud prevention and accidental legal misrepresentation defense mechanism to take away the .eu domains from the UK. If you go to a .eu domain and buy something you would expect not to be subject to import duties etc.
Just a matter of getting a TTP / Intermediary to hold the domain for you in the EU, same as for the local presence requirements in for example .no(rway) and many other TLD's.
It's just another $10-20/year and fixes your 'problem'
Many domain registrars will offer this service, as 90+% of their clients will need it for these ccTLD's.
The most fun TLD is .su
Someone on IRC managed to register "kremvax.su" a few years ago and gave anyone in the channel who wanted them email addresses (so I briefly had swiley@kremvax.su for example.)
Unfortunately the were asked for some documentation they couldn't provide a few months later and it got shut down.
> There's a big downside to using .kz in that the registry has a policy (as per https://nic.kz/rules/) that .kz hostnames must relate to "Internet resources" located on hardware and software located within the territory of Kazakhstan.
Any country TLD is a potential risk that most western "entrepreneurs" blissfully ignore.
Just a month ago notion.so had troubles with it's domain because .so belongs to Somalia, and Somalia changed some rules around registration and ownership [1]
The registration of a domain name in the ccTLD .it is permitted only to persons who have citizenship, residence or a registered office in the countries of the European Economic Area (EEA), the Vatican, the Republic of San Marino, and Switzerland.
The issue it that a lot of .com are taken so for the sake of a personal email address it is not ideal.
The person that owns "belval.com" literally registered it before I was born so I settled for "belval.org", "belval.me", "belv.al" but only the first one is accepted by most company.
My last name ends in al but the domain is taken. The .com one is taken by a guy who’s using it to showcase his Holocaust family tree (oddly enough his son had a run in with my sis a while back). I tried reaching out to him to see if he was interested in taking like .org but he’s not :( so I got .me
I offered $1k (there's nothing on belval.com) and belval.org to the owner of belval.com, he just replied to say "never contact me again" as if I was with the mob or something. It was a weird experience.
I learned some countries have things like this after an article last month where someone traced an IP range used by palor or another organization like that to a country with similar rules, and filed a complaint with the company that leased it, who revoked the range. (Going from memory here, sorry if I'm getting things wrong).
Especially given Ive heard some of these TLDs are cheaper to encourage their use, people who want to run services on these should be careful even if enforcement is often lax or nonexistent until a complaint is filed.
Uh oh. How do I find rules for other domains? I went a little batty with the .de domain years ago and have quite a few. But, I'm not in Germany. While there is a mild ethical cringe at doing this, am I running afoul of some rules that might actually bite me later?
The information on Wikipedia itself is mostly descriptive, while the registry website or other external links should have the actual rules and restrictions.
I think the OP is OK as it appears the IP addresses of both the A and MX records are located within Kazakhstan, but something to be aware of if you think registering a .kz is a fun idea(!) :-)