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No @LeaveEUOfficial the Irish government didn't knock you offline and neither did @nealerichmond - the reason is probably way simpler: https://mj.ie/38Lp5ct
There seems to be quite a bit of confusion in the media about this story. @alexhern wrote about it last night for @guardian and repeated some weird inaccuracies which is unfortunate. First off the domain http://leave.eu is registered to a company not to a person
That's important. Legally there's a big difference between registering an asset to an individual (natural person) vs to a company (legal person).
In the case of .eu domains they can be registered to either BUT the public whois will clearly show this:
https://whois.eurid.eu/en/search/?domain=leave.eu
In the case of .eu domains they can be registered to either BUT the public whois will clearly show this:
https://whois.eurid.eu/en/search/?domain=leave.eu
Most of the media coverage seems to be fixated on the email address in the whois record. They don't appear to have looked at the actual domain name registrant OR the company data. Irish company data is 100% public so you can read it here https://core.cro.ie/e-commerce/company/675854
If you don't want to pay for the fillings or want to get "enriched" data there's a bunch of services like Vision-net that can help with that.
The email address in the public whois is hanging off http://bsg.ie
BSG is Business Services Group who do company formations + secretarial https://bsg.ie/company-formations/
BSG is Business Services Group who do company formations + secretarial https://bsg.ie/company-formations/
BSG's registered address in Waterford is the same as "BETTER FOR THE COUNTRY DIGITAL MARKETING SERVICES DESIGNATED ACTIVITY COMPANY" which is the registrant of http://leave.eu
As I mentioned back in October that company's directors include several of the prominent Brexiteers: https://www.internetnews.me/2020/10/02/brexit-campaign-eu-domain-is-now-irish/
The Guardian article says Mr Power is the "legal owner of the domain" - no he isn't - see above.
Yes his email address is a contact, but the domain is registered to the Irish company with the rather long name mentioned above
Yes his email address is a contact, but the domain is registered to the Irish company with the rather long name mentioned above
Last week an Irish TD (member of our parliament) started making waves about the domain name, website and company. @nealerichmond apparently lodged a complaint with @comreg about the domain. Comreg have nothing to do with .eu domain names, so I've no idea why he did that.
The .eu domain was setup under contract by the European Commission. It's governed by the EC and a number of EU level bits of legislation. And the team at @EUregistry have rules + policies governing who can register a domain etc etc
In very basic terms the .eu domain is for Europe / Europeans. Under the current policies + rules you can have one if you've got an address anywhere in the EU / EEA OR if you're an EU citizen.
The UK *was* part of the EU so individuals and organisations there could register .eu domain names from when .eu launched back in 2006 up until December 31st 2020 at midnight.
With the UK withdrawal they're no longer going to be part of the EU (doh!) so .eu domains no longer an option. The EC could have handled this situation a lot more gracefully but decided to play hardball. End result being that Jan 1st '21 a significant number of domains went dark
Still with me? (This is longer than I'd planned!)
Anyhow ... the http://leave.eu domain name wasn't impacted by the 1st January 2021 suspensions as the registrant had been changed to an Irish registered company months and months ago.
As I wrote last night, the http://leave.eu domain is currently offline. It's been suspended by the registry. Why?
Based on what I know (did I mention I'm on one of the advisory boards to @EUregistry ? So yes I do know what I'm talking about) it looks like it's validation
Based on what I know (did I mention I'm on one of the advisory boards to @EUregistry ? So yes I do know what I'm talking about) it looks like it's validation
The registry's legal team have probably triggered a domain holder validation process. They've been doing this with ANY domain that contained "covid" related terms since last year https://blacknight.blog/some-changes-to-domain-registration-processes.html
So for some dumb reason the EC insists that the domain validation notices are sent directly by @EUregistry and NOT by the hosting provider / registrar that people have bought their domain name from. So based on our experience a lot of them don't see the email or think it's spam
the process is email based, so if you miss the emails or simply don't action them your domain(s) will end up being suspended and will stay down until you take action.
