Light should actually go for the nearly 80,000 domains that British individuals or companies had registered with Eurid on 31 March. But now the registry gives the .eu domain a grace period.
The move became necessary after the United Kingdom left the European Union. The registry registering the EURID, .eu domain has stipulated in its guidelines that only individuals or companies located within the EU are allowed to have .eu domains.
New deadline till 30 June
In the run-up to Brexit, Eurid had repeated the imminent end for the British owners of the domain. At the beginning of the year there were still around 80,000 .eu domains that had been “suspended” by Eurid. This means that these domains are no longer connected and cannot be sold.
Originally, Eurid had given the owners until 31 March 2021 to clarify their circumstances. The Brussels-based registry has now announced that the deadline will be extended to June 30, 2021. On July 1st, all domains for which there is no contact address within the European Union will automatically enter “withdrawn” mode. The former owner will no longer be able to reactivate them.
Beginning in 2022, the “orphan” domain should be available for new registration again. How many of the domains switched to “suspend” mode have been reactivated in January was not revealed by Eurid.
However, one might assume that most of these are “file owners”, because since 1 January 2021, websites under these domain names are no longer accessible, and other services such as e-mail no longer work.
